Professional Challenges. Amateur Solutions.
So goes the slogan of the Bruce High Quality Foundation, a five-year-old artist collective of young men based in New York who dedicate themselves (and their serious art school credentials from Cooper Union) to the task of critiquing art commerce and the star-making antics of the market.
In keeping with their philosophy, the Bruces retain anonymous identities, claiming that they are each named after a fictional artist (named Bruce High Quality) who perished during the events of 9/11. As part of the group’s efforts to highlight some of the shadier elements of the art world, they’ve given lectures and performances, imagined Manhattan as a pizza, staged a renegade revival of Cats: The Musical, performed a stunning a capella version of George Michael’s “Father Figure”, and employed a motorboat to pull a miniature version of Jeanne-Claude and Christo’s Gates around the island of Manhattan, in 2005. Oh, and they’ve also launched a university, appropriately called The Bruce High Quality Foundation University.
In summary, the group aspires “to invest the experience of public space with wonder, to resurrect art history from the bowels of despair, and to impregnate the institutions of art with the joy of man’s desiring.”
To which a person can only say HELL YES.
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