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:

1983 JOURNAL: Entries of texts that will eventually become the Provocation Cards, begins Sept 26, 1983
1986 ARTIST'S BOOK (offset): Homo Futurus, page begins Feb 4, 1983 (VSW Press, 1986) (reviewed)
1988 MAIL ART (anonymous): Provocation Cards, Suite of 7, 1988
1990 VIDEO: Lying Diary / Provocation Cards, 1990 (https://vimeo.com/70411767)
2005 PERFORMANCE: Existential Interact, Crash During Performa05 / in front of White Box, NYC, 2005 (reviewed in NY Arts)
2005 PERFORMANCE: Existential Interact, Crash During Performa05 / Guggenheim Museum Portico (while Marina A was inside), NYC, 2005
2008 PERFORMANCE: Existential Interact / KW Sidewalk, Wooloo New Berlin Festival, Berlin, 2008 (reviewed in Flash Art)
2009 ARTIST'S BOOK (folio): Provocation Cards Folio, Suite of 21, English and German, Oct 26, 2009
2009 EXHIBITION and PERFORMANCE: Provocation Cards Interactive Performance and Text-based Print Suite, Lucas Carrieri Gallery, Berlin, 2009 (reviewed in Flash Art)
2009 PERFORMANCE: Existential Interact with Identity Theft Masks and Provocation Cards, TinaB: Prague Contemporary Art Festival, 2009 (catalog)
2010 BILLBOARDS: Provocation Cards Billboard Project, Padua, Italy, 2009-10
2010 ARTIST'S BOOK (folio):Provocation Cards Folio, Suite of 22, Sept. 12, 2010
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
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
2013 PERFORMANCE:Existential Interact with Provocation Cards, Ideas City / The New Museum, NYC, 2013
2013 FOLIO: Provocation Cards Folio, Suite of 22, English, German, French. Feb. 4, 2013
2013 PERFORMANCE:Existential Interact with Provocation Cards, Esplanade Trocadero, Paris, 2013
2013 ARTIST'S BOOK (folio):Provocation Cards Folio, Suite of 22, English, German, French. June 7, 2013 (collection Tate, London)
2013 PERFORMANCE: Existential Interact with Identity Theft Masks and Provocation Cards, Undercurrent Projects, NYC, 2013
2013 PERFORMANCE:: Existential Interact with Provocation Cards, Opera House Plaza, Sydney, Australia, 2013
2014 ARTIST'S BOOK (folio):Provocation Cards Folio, Suite of 22, Jan 30, 2014
2015 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 close, Eng, German, French, Italian. Feb 1, 2015 (collection purchase: Tate, London)
2019 PERFORMANCE Existential Interact with Provocation Cards, English, German, French, Italian, Belgian, Latvian, Finnish, in front of the Helsinki Art Museum, Finland
2019 PERFORMANCE Existential Interact with Provocation Cards, English, German, French, Italian, Belgian, Latvian, Finnish, Icelandic. Rejkjavik, Iceland, Feb. 2019
2018 QUOTATION: Three cards quoted as if by the "Media Poet" character in novel Wish for Amnesia Deadly Chaps Press, NYC, 2018
2022 PERFORMANCE: Existential Interact with Provocation Cards, English, German, French, Italian, Belgian, Latvian, Finnish, Icelandic. In front of Barbara Kruger's show at the David Zwirner Gallery, NYC, June, 2022.
2026 PERFORMANCE:Existential Interact with Provocation Cards,English, German, French, Italian, Belgian, Latvian, Finnish, Icelandic. White Box Portable, Port Authority Subway Transverse, NYC, June 13, 2026
2026 EXHIBITION:Existential Interact with Provocation Card Folio, with loose color cards in English, German, French, Italian, Belgian, Latvian, Finnish, Icelandic. White Box Portable, Port Authority Subway Transverse, NYC, June 13 - July, 2026
2026 VIDEO INTERVIEW: "Let Them Talk," hosted by Paul DeRienzo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B27xsXUbT_0&t=11s
2026 PERFORMANCE: Homo Futurus Provocation Cards Interact, Eng, Ger, Fr, It. Bowery during New Museum 'New Humans" show, June-July, 2026 (reviewed in the Village Star-Review, by Steve DiLauro.)

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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