Yevgeniy Fiks
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Work from the piece Lenin For Your Library?
I saw a show the Fiks was a part of at the Art Laboratory Berlin recently and there was a fantastic piece which I could not find on the internet. Opposite the wall of letters from various corporate libraries was the piece described below (by the artist) Commemorative CPUSA Stamps, 2007-2008:
“The artist published US postal stamps baring portraits of historical leaders of the Communist Party of the USA, including Mother Ella Reeves and William Z. Foster among others. Eight different stamps (eight different portraits), ten with each portrait, eighty stamps total. During 2007-2008 Yevgeniy Fiks was using these stamps on envelops when he pays his monthly utility bills to corporations (Time Warner Cable, Con Edison, T-Mobil, CitiMortgage, Verizon, and other corporations). Fiks subverts the concept of a “commemorative stamp” baring portraits of historical figures by putting on stamps faces of forgotten and repressed leaders of American
Communist Party and using these stamps in his everyday life.”
“100 copies of “Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism” by V.I. Lenin were sent out to the addresses of World’s major corporations, including Gap, Coca-Cola, General Electric, and IBM among many others. In an enclosed letter, it was stated that the book was a donation to the corporate library. Out of 100 copies, 14 were accepted and “thank you” letters were received. 20 copies were returned together with letters stating various reasons for rejection, including a particular focus of the library or their policy not to accept any gifts or donations from private individuals. The fate of the remaining 66 copies remains unknown.
Initial list of companies: Epson America, Gap, Merrill Lynch, Campbell Soup, United States Steel Corporation, JCPenney, Medco Health Solutions, Yamaha, DuPont, Staples, Pfizer, Sony, Amazon.com, Western Union Financial Services, Prudential Financial, Best Buy, Wendy’s International, General Electric, McDonald’s, Chanel, Coca-Cola, The Walt Disney Company, CVS, Wachovia, Ford Motor Company, Xerox Headquarters, Apple, Autodesk, Adobe Systems Incorporated, Bank of America, Tektronix, Intermedia Communications, Microsoft Corporation, Dell, IBM Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, Macromedia, Intel, Iomega Corporation, Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, Gateway, Lucent Technologies, Novell, Bloomingdale’s, Oracle, Yahoo!, SGI, Sybase, Micron Technology, ATI Technologies, Corel, America Online, Compuware Corporation, Morgan Stanley, Johnson & Johnson, Citibank, Citigroup, Wal-Mart Stores, Metlife, State Farm Insurance, JP Morgan Chase, Time Warner, Saks Fifth Avenue, General Motors, Pepsi-Cola, Boeing, Verizon, Texaco, Exxon Mobil, Phillips Conoco, Sunoco, Expedia, EarthLink, Sears, Roebuck and Co., CompUSA, Calvin Klein, Swatch Watch, Sprint, AT&T, Home Depot, Panasonic, Philip Morris, The Procter & Gamble, Rolex Watch, Newsweek, Nike, Mitsubishi, ABC, Fujitsu, Simon and Schuster, Sharp, Shell Oil, 7-Eleven, Gillette, Levi Strauss, Radio Shack, Adidas, Circuit City, Kmart, British Petroleum, Goodrich Corporation [sic]”