More events!

Here is a closer-to-comprehensive list of the events we plan to host at #class. (There are still more to come! Stay tuned for additions.) A schedule will be posted here in the next couple of days. (If you're a #class participant who has has not confirmed his or her timeslot, email us asap!) And it should go without saying that everything is subject to change.

First the Event/Performances/Presentations (scroll down for some updated discussion descriptions)

Rebecca Armstrong will present "Working Artist," a contract-based performance art piece that sets up an agreement between an artist and collector by which the artist is paid for labor rather than product, thus ostensibly freeing the art-making process from the market. The contract is currently unsigned.

The Art Blahg will present "Art Wake," a funeral ritual for contemporary art.

Man Bartlett will be presenting "24h #class action," a marathon group intervention involving systematically blowing up hundreds of skinny balloons and popping them, without creating or harming any cute little puppies.

Zachary Adam Cohen will be presenting on social media as a flattening agent in the art world and its implications for broadening the discussion and community of the arts. He will also touch on issues of the unsustainability of the art world, the concept of Free and gift societies and how they relate to the current art market. He may propose the installation and adoption of artificial price support mechanisms and touch on the issue of collusion. His goal is to promote a bottom up, people powered movement in the art world with the power to continually restore and repair damaged nodes, as well as offering up a much needed dose of transparency into the current system.

Jennifer Dalton will present "Access Starts with Education and Education Starts with Access," in which she'll lead her son's Bedford-Stuyvesant public school kindergarten class on a short Chelsea art walk, ending up at Edward Winkleman Gallery to eat lunch and make an art project about what they've seen.

Franklin Einspruch will give a lecture entitled "Conceptualism for Sale: How the Art World Uses Low Standards for Fun and Profit."

Yevgeniy Fiks will present a slide-lecture titled "Communist Modern Artists and the Art Market," showing how many of the the most highly valued art of the 20th century was produced by artists who considered themselves communists (Picasso, Leger, Kahlo, Rivera and more).

Princeton University writing professors Dr. Gloria and Dr. Kristin will lead partipants in a thinking and writing exercise to assess the value of their assessments of value. Every participant will leave with a renewed understanding and a letter grade.

Rebecca Goyette will present "Market U," an art critique as experiential theatre. The Ringmaster of Market University will review the live examples of artwork of selected recent graduates of of various NYC MFA Programs including Market U. A panel of judges, internationally recognized art critics, gallery owners and artists who work for Market U will be the jury... or will you?

Hyperallergic has prepared $ECRET$ OF THE NEW YORK ART WORLD, which invites visitors to reveal who in the city's art industry owes them money. Will the pyramid scheme that is the art world collapse when the secrets come out? Hyperallergic hopes so.

Bernard Klevickas will present "Labor Class- Learn what it is like to construct a masterpiece." From 2000-2005 Klevickas worked at an art foundry fabricating art for Jeff Koons, Louise Bourgeois, Frank Stella and others. This will be a great opportunity to hear what the experience is like from the labor and production side of things.

How does a single human being raise an army? James Leonard asks just that with his Warbonds Performance. After conceptualizing an ambitious installation, rather than waiting for someone else to do the fundraising after his career has taken off, James has decided to take matters into his own hands. He's printed his own series of Warbond Certificates complete with multiple security features such as microprinting and a holographic foil tape. The profits from the sale of these prints will fund the manufacture of 100,000 custom toy soldiers. Through the theatric language of a quasi-para-military briefing, James will weave a web of connections between The Warbonds Project and the larger economy in which we all participate. Certificates will be available for sale, signing and sealing following the performance along with open interaction with James regarding the project and any related discussion.

Dr. Lisa Levy, S.P. (Self-Proclaimed) will present "Investigating Personal Obstacles to Creativity and Creative Productivity," a workshop using the tools of psychoanalysis to begin to identify how personal history and emotions subvert and misdirect our actions to make creative work so we can realize our full potential as artists.

Alan Lupiani is a self-styled street reporter utilizing his own blend of humor and wit to get the inside scoop regarding art news and events around New York City. Please feel free to chat with him at the opening of "#class" at Edward Winkleman Gallery on Sunday, February 21st between 6 - 7pm."

Jennifer and Kevin McCoy will lead "Let's Figure Out What They Want," a collector focus group. They aim to ask direct questions not only about what art piques collectors' interests, but also what their expectations are vis a vis the presence of the artist's life behind the work.

Carolina Miranda will lead participants in "Art Yoga by C-Mon," incorporating newly invented poses to aid artists in the contortions necessary to advance their practice and career.

Artists MTAA will demonstrate "Autotrace," a completely automatic, software-generated appropriation and shape creation system.

William Powhida will lead an informal art walk through several Chelsea galleries encouraging people to exercise their judgment and discuss the value of the work on display turning each stop into a think space. (Hopefully we won't be thrown out for discussing the art!)

Nic Rad will present "The Celebritist Manifesto," a stirring defense of celebrity culture as the boldest creative expression of a democratic society, in which it will become abundantly clear that James Franco is the most significant artist of the decade, if not all time.

San Francisco-based artist Lizabeth Rossof will ask, "Do I have to Live in New York City?" to a cast of New York-based experts, in and out of the art world.

Caitlin Rueter and Suzanne Stroebe will host a Feminist Tea Party, an event that lies somewhere in between a contemporary consciousness raising group, a panel discussion, a performance, and a joke. They will create an installation of sorts, with a table set for tea, complete with tablecloth, porcelain cups, finger sandwiches and cookies. While attempting to maintain a visual and stylistic protocol consistent with an afternoon tea party, they will engage visitors in a dialogue around contemporary women's issues that contrasts sharply with the formal, prissy setting.

Free Gift Wrapping! Anyone who buys an artwork during the run of the show can have it gift-wrapped by Zoë Sheehan Saldaña in handmade brown paper and twine.

Magda Sawon of Postmasters Gallery will host "Ask the Art Dealer," vowing to truthfully answer any and every question posed to her as long as it does not involve her weight, social security number or other people's money. We're starting to collect questions now, if you post one in the comments here it will get asked!

Painter and writer Mira Schor will read her 1990 essay “On Failure and Anonymity” and lead a discussion on how these conditions might play a positive role in making art.

Sarah Smizz will give away free posters featuring her "Maps of the Art System."

Leigh Waldron-Taylor will present "Meme no more? Has the artist become a 21stC trope?" A rereading of Allan Kaprow's "The Artist as a Man of the World" 45 years later.

Author and motivational speaker Rod Verplanck CSP, CPAE will be giving an entertaining and inspirational talk on how to make it to the top of the Contemporary Art World. Let Rod help you unlock what is stopping you from wild creativity. Avoid the fear of overfulfillment, unshackle your ambition and face the maelstrom of horrible possibilities. Learn that the very smallness of your ideas is key to your wild success. (The opposite of what you thought!)

WAGE Artists will present "Wake Up Call, Artists Need to be Paid Too!"

An Xiao will present "Photoglam," during which she and her glamorous entourage will be photographing attendees during the opening reception and posting them on the Facebook event page. The photos with the top number of 'likes' will be publicly posted.

[name withheld by artist's request in the spirit of open content] has organized "Shut Up Already, I'll Look at your Art!" open source call to artists on the "Outside" to have their work viewed by an "Insider". For this project, gallerist Ed Winkleman will spend a portion of his time in the gallery during #class reviewing digital images of art sent via the internet to #class by artists globally. Artists will be asked to submit a digital image of one piece of art to be reviewed by Mr. Winkleman for at least 10 seconds, TWICE the average time museum goers spend viewing a piece of art.

On Sundays #class will be the only show open in Chelsea, and we encourage you to come out and help turn the show into an informal, social space. Jen and William will be making work for the market space and discussing the progression of ideas within the think space. During the day from approximately 2pm-5pm will be "Competition Time," a game-playing hangout where visitors can overtly show their competitive side and play video games, card games and board games. Come hang out, talk, have a beer, do some work on the walls, read a text, play, or maybe even make an offer on a drawing. It's the only thing going on in Chelsea.

On the final night of the show we will host "Rant Night," where everyone is encouraged to come and let it rip on whatever's still bothering you.

Two of our discussion topics have evolved slightly, here are updated descriptions:

Collecting with Your Eye, Not Your Ears

What motivates collectors to acquire work? Is it what you hear about an artist or is it the work itself? It can't just be to fill the New Museum or flip at auction! Barry Hoggard and James Wagner have been invited to lead a discussion around how and why people build private collections, with an emphasis on the committed enthusiast with limited funds.

The evening is intended to address collecting, not as a hobby, furniture or investment, but as a way of repurposing a worthy human impulse in danger of being reduced to a convention, an adornment, even a racket. The discussion will be facilitated by Julia Weist.

Background, Identity and the Straight White Male - (Suggested by An Xiao )
As William Powhida wrote, "The complexion of the art world is a lighter shade of pale, and despite the Whitney Biennial's gender parity all is not well in the market." Artist An Xiao would like to invite an open table discussion about how artists' identities and backgrounds influence the perception, reception and display of their work. How do factors like perceived race, gender, age, socioeconomic status and sexual orientation affect our experience of the art world? To what extent *should* an artist's background be considered? We welcome those of all backgrounds with open arms to talk about your art, which could be worth making the implicit explicit. This panel will be moderated by writer Joanne McNeil.