Together with Cem A. and Harley Aussoleil, Complainers & Killjoys (formerly HÖR NY) is a collective which offers workshops on criticizing the art world and its institutions through memes.
Yes, memes, the images with text captions that spread virally on the Internet, are bleeding into all aspects of our life. Like every community, the art world is also full of Internet trolls, social justice warriors, and online jesters as well as some nuanced critics. As a collective of meme makers and curators, we see the terrifying yet beautifully intoxicating potential of memes to influence social and instituting change in the art world.
We give a theoretical introduction, share some of our favorite dankest memes and teach participants how memes can be made with various online tools.
We look at real art world stories where memes were used as a form of institutional critique, and discuss their complexities, especially in relation to accessibility and privilege. Whose critiques are heard, through which platforms?
We then work with the workshop participants to create memes together in conversation, memeing iteratively from each other's work.
