PROVOCATION CARDS PROJECT
aphorisms, mail art, artist's book folios, video, performances, ephermera

HISTORY OF THE PROJECT
1983-ongoing
DERIVATION, EDITIONS, ITERERATIONS, MEDIA AND DEVELOPMENT:

JOURNAL: Entries of texts that will eventually become the Provocation Cards, begins Sept 26, 1983
ARTIST'S BOOK (offset): Homo Futurus, page begins Feb 4, 1983 (VSW Press, 1986) (reviewed)
MAIL ART (anonymous): Provocation Cards, Suite of 7, 1988
VIDEO: Lying Diary / Provocation Cards, 1990 (https://vimeo.com/70411767)
PERFORMANCE: Existential Interact, Crash During Performa05 / White Box, NYC, 2005 (reviewed in NY Arts)
PERFORMANCE: Existential Interact, Crash During Performa05 / Guggenheim Museum Portico, NYC, 2005
PERFORMANCE: Existential Interact / KW Sidewalk, Wooloo New Berlin Festival, Berlin, 2008 (reviewed in Flash Art)
ARTIST'S BOOK (folio): Provocation Cards Folio, Suite of 21, English and German, Oct 26, 2009
EXHIBITION and PERFORMANCE: Provocation Cards Interactive Performance and Text-based Print Suite, Lucas Carrieri Gallery, Berlin, 2009 (reviewed in Flash Art)
PERFORMANCE: Existential Interact with Identity Theft Masks and Provocation Cards, TinaB: Prague Contemporary Art Festival, 2009 (catalog)
BILLBOARDS: Provocation Cards Billboard Project, Padua, Italy, 2009-10
ARTIST'S BOOK (folio):Provocation Cards Folio, Suite of 22, Sept. 12, 2010
PERFORMANCE and Video: Existential Interact with Identity Theft Masks and Provocation Cards and Lying Diary/Provocation Cards, Moving Exibition, 10 Gales Gallery, London, 2010
PERFORMANCE: Existential Interact with Identity Theft Masks and Provocation Cards,Summer Solstice at Stonehendge, UK, 2010
PERFORMANCE:Existential Interact with Identity Theft Masks and Provocation Cards,  Grand'Place, Brussels, 2010
PERFORMANCE:Existential Interact with Provocation Cards, Ideas City / The New Museum, NYC, 2013
Folio: Provocation Cards Folio, Suite of 22, English, German, French. Feb. 4, 2013
PERFORMANCE:Existential Interact with Provocation Cards, Esplanade Trocadero, Paris, 2013
ARTIST'S BOOK (folio):Provocation Cards Folio, Suite of 22, English, German, French. June 7, 2013 (collection Tate, London)
PERFORMANCE: Existential Interact with Identity Theft Masks and Provocation Cards, Undercurrent Projects, NYC, 2013
PERFORMANCE:: Existential Interact with Provocation Cards, Opera House Plaza, Sydney, Australia, 2013
ARTIST'S BOOK (folio):Provocation Cards Folio, Suite of 22, Jan 30, 2014
PERFORMANCE:Existential Interact with Provocation Cards, English, German, French, Italian. Piazza del Popolo, Rome, Italy, 2015
ARTIST'S BOOK (folio):Provocation Cards Folio, Suite of 22, wing-nut closure, English, German, French, Italian. Feb 1, 2015 (collection Tate, London)
QUOTATION: Three cards quoted as if by the "Media Poet" character in novel Wish for Amnesia Deadly Chaps Press, NYC, 2018

ARTIST'S STATEMENT:

(edited from Artist's Statement for Tina B Prague Contemporary Art Festival, Oct. 2009, when two cards performed with were then enlarged as billboards and hung in Prague's "sister city," Paudua, Italy. Barbara Rosenthal represented the United States at the Prague Contemporary Art Festival in both Text-Based Art and Performance / Video Art in 2009 and 2010.)

                I have always worked in words and pictures. Sometimes these are separate: the words are literary, as in fiction or poetry or art criticism, or the journals I have kept since age 11; and the pictures are art, as in photographs or prints or objects, or, in the past, paintings; but sometimes these are together, as in artist's books, some videos or what is now called "text-based art."
                Derived from statements in my Journals, Provocation Cards was born as an anonymous Mail Art series in 1988, then became part of a video in 1990, and has since become incorporated into my interactive performances, and, most recently as Provocation Cards Wall Art, Provocation Cards Billboards, etc.
                As is typical of my work in all media, it changes form and is used in many different ways It keeps coming back for revision and re-issue over the years, carefully reworked in both text and image as it does. This is why you see so many outlines and edges around the texts: these artworks show their "whips and scorns of time": the artifacts of their text and design revisions and then xeroxing, re-xeroxing, scanning or photographing, and various printing means and page set-ups are apparent.
                What is important to me in text-art, however, is the TEXT!!! Although I sometimes produce "Deluxe Editions", I always manufacture at least one variation of the core component of an art-idea to be as cheap and as easily accessible as possible, and in text pieces I hone the writing to be as clear as statement of hard-thought philosophy as can be. I never want to be glib or merely clever. My throw-away lines get thrown away. And I never want to overproduce. I feel I must say this because, as a genre, this genre has seen way, way too many shallow thoughts, deep pockets.

PROJECT: PROVOCATION CARDS: IMAGES

Provocation Cards Folios 2009 and 2016

Lying Diary / Provocation Cards. Video, c. 1985

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Provocation Cards Billboards, Padua, Italy, 2009-2010

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Provocation Cartds in Performance: Existential Interaction with Provocation Cards Logo ; Barbara Rosenthal Performing Existential Interact with Provocation Cards,  Grand'Place, Brussels, 2010; Esplanade de Trocadero, Paris, 2014; Piazza del Popolo, Rome 2015.

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Provocation Cards Folio Editions 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2015.......Ephemera from Provocation Cards Performances (Card torn and thrown at artist, Brussels, 2010; Cards Pinned on Hat during Performances, 2010-; Yellow Provocation Cards from Rome Performance, 2015; Rained on Cards from Provocation Cards Paris Performance,


Mixed Provocation Cards Ephemera and of Artists Book Homo Futurus open to the first idea.

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Existential Interact, Brussels, c. 2009

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