Place:
Antigua Oficina de Correos y Telégrafos
The New El Dorado, 2010
Exploring the phenomena of cultural consumption, tourism and the tradition of the historical "Grand Tour", Common Culture's new work,
The New El Dorado, narrates an encounter between the specific characteristics of a place and the culture of others. Their previous work includes
Openings are Always Awkward, 2009.
Common Culture
Founded in Liverpool, England, 1996.
David Campbell
1957, Corbridge, U.K.. Lives and works in Belfast and Crewe.
Mark Durden
1964, Stourbridge, U.K. Lives and works in Wirral.
Ian Brown
1972, Stoke-on-Trent, U.K. Lives and works in London.
Through a series of sculptural, photographic and multi-channel video projects, Common Culture explores how contemporary social identity is constructed through the rituals of consumption within popular culture. Often collaborating with workers from the entertainment industry, they engineer strategic collisions between the elitist assumptions attached to Art and its institutions, and the perceived commonplace and vulgar aspects of popular culture. Previous work has addressed the issue of alienation and exploitation of workers as the logical, but culturally invisible, consequence of commodity consumption. Stand-up comedians, nightclub bouncers, fast-food shopping, tribute singers, discos and the collective's own status as an exhibiting artist have all been used by Common Culture to explore how venerated and vernacular cultural forms are unequivocally bound up with issues of taste, class and notions of national identity. For Manifesta 8, Common Culture presents a narrative project looking at tourism, tradition and cultural consumption, incorporating a video inspired by the concept of the classical "Grand Tour".
