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Eva & Franco Mattes:

Attribution Art?
Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG. Project for the
fake Nike Monument in Karlsplatz, 2003, print on canvas, 38 x 52.
Courtesy Postmasters Gallery, New York
Thanks to a friend, I recently read an impressive Walter Benjamin
quote: To a book collector, you see, the true freedom of all books is
somewhere on his shelves. I loved it, because it is very telling of what
I think not just about collecting, but also about appropriation, theft, and
curating. All these actions have to do with taking something made by
somebody else and making it your own property, legally or illegally.

Along with Benjamin, I believe that when you do this, you are actually
freeing the object you take, allowing it to be more than just what it was
in the intentions of its creator: more than just a photo documentation of
a Rasta community, as in Richard Princes appropriation of Patrick
Carious work; more than just a toy, like in many Jeff Koons works;
more than just a Walker Evans photo, like in the work of Sherrie
Levine.

Eva and Franco Mattes are a couple of Italian-born, New York-based

artists who made their first appearance on the Internet, under the label
0100101110101101.ORG. Their work has much to do with theft:
recently, they even stole a radioactive ride from the Chernobyl area
and reconstructed it in Manchester, United Kingdom. So, when
ARTPULSE asked me to interview them, I thought it would have been
interesting to interview some of the victims of their thefts instead: not
to collect livid reactions, but rather to rouse a positive thinking about
the beneficial consequences of this act of appropriation. We all know
what theyve lost; but what did they gain from Eva and Francos thefts?

By Domenico Quaranta

Domenico Quaranta - Dirk Paesmans is a Bruxelles-born artist

and part of the artist duo Jodi. Started in 1995, their web project
jodi.org was a revelation for many artists interested in making art
on the Internet. In 1999, Eva and Franco Mattes copied Jodis
website and published it unchanged on their own,
0100101110101101.ORG. In both cases, the website was the
artists identity, and this brought the Mattes to take part in some
shows in place of Jodi. Copyright is boring, they said. Dirk, do
you agree?

Dirk Paesmans - I agree. If you dont want your art to be used by

others, then youd better stay away from the Internet keep it in your
studio and show it in a gallery. On the Internet, if you can see it, you
own it. Once you publish something online you are accepting that
others may use it. And the other way around: our work is full of stuff
we found online: code, images, sounds, it all comes from there and
who knows who did it in the first place?
Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG. Copy of
www.Jodi.org, 1999, Website.

D.Q. - Darko Maver is currently a full-time professor of

criminalistics at the Faculty of Criminal Justice, University of
Maribor, and at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana. Back
in 1998, the Mattes used his name to create the legend of an
artist, wandering in decaying Yugoslavia and installing
provocative sculptures in public spaces. Darko Maver was
supposedly persecuted, arrested, and died in prison in April,
1999. In September, 1999, the Venice Biennale hosted a tribute to
the dead artist. I asked the real Darko if he enjoyed this weird
celebrity.

Darko Maver - Im a criminologist, my job is to look at crime scenes to

understand them. While, as far as I got, my homonym artist was
setting up crime scenes as artworks, sculptures that looked like
corpses. There is definitely something connecting our lives other than
the name we share.

D.Q. - After resigning from his position of Director of the Holy See
Press Office in 2006, Doctor Joaqun Navarro-Valls is now easier
to contact. He was there when, in 1999, 0100101110101101.org
bought the domain Vaticano.org and played the role of the Holy
See for a whole year, rewriting encyclicals, collaging prayers, pop
songs and fantasy tales, and hijacking pilgrims. Dr. Navarro-Valls,
at the time you had to stop this bad joke. Twelve years later, what
do you think about it?

Joaqun Navarro-Valls - Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one

mustnt misuse it.

D.Q. - It was hard, instead, to get in touch with Philip Knight,

chairman of Nike. Im pretty sure that, in the end, my email was
replied by a spokesman, but its interesting anyway. Mr. Knight, in
2003, Eva and Franco Mattes appropriated the Swoosh logo and
the Nike identity, and made a weird advertisement campaign in
your place. The action had legal consequences, and Nike lost the
battle. Are you still upset?

Philip Knight - Many people compared this case to Andy Warhol

using Campbells Soup for his paintings, but I dont see any similarity.
Warhol used to eat Campbells products and was celebrating its logo
as an icon of his time. As far as I know this so called artists, who
exploited our brand, dont even wear our running shoes.

D.Q. - In 2010, Eva and Franco stole from a master of robbery.

Using a popular Internet meme as a model, they made a fake
Cattelan sculpture, and they showed it as a Cattelan in Texas,
before claiming the prank. Maurizio, did they learn from you? And
what did you learn from them?

Maurizio Cattelan - They didnt steal anything from me what they did
is not appropriation art, Id call it attribution art instead: they made
an artwork and attributed it to me. I somehow feel better about having
an idea added to my work than an idea stolen. To me ideas are like
bicycles: if you got yours stolen, you are authorized to steal one
yourself, but only after they stole yours, otherwise youre breaking the
chain.
Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG. The Others,
2011, 10.000 photos found in personal computers.

D.Q. - One of the last Mattes works, The Others (2011), is a

slideshow of 10,000 private photos found on personal computers,
exploiting a hole in peer-to-peer software. Thanks to the Mattes, I
was able to get in touch with Debra ., a 35-year-old woman
whose touching photos of her pregnancy ended up in the
slideshow. What the Mattes didnt know when they exhibited The
Others in Sheffield, United Kingdom, was that Debra lived there.
She went to the opening.

Debra. - When I realized the person in the photos was me, I was
shocked. It was extremely embarrassing; these photos were not meant
to be seen by anybody other than me and my family. But Ive to admit
that after viewing the whole work several times, my feelings started
changing: I realized the victims of these thefts were not the subjects of
derision; there is some kind of celebration in the amateurish way they
are projected, maybe its the music. I was watching carefully the other
visitors in the show and I sensed they had the same feeling. Then I
realized that anyones life nowadays can be part of an artwork,
willingly or unwillingly.

D.Q. - Between 1995 and 1997, the Mattes stole pieces of

masterpieces from museums around the world. The first piece
was a bottle top from an Edward Kienholz installation

Edward Kienholz - In principle, I cannot excuse what they did, but I

have to admit that I would have never noticed the absence of that
bottle top, so I didnt feel like my work was permanently defaced. One
could put it this way: before there was one work, mine; now there are
two, mine and theirs. As long as this doesnt become a trend, I
wouldnt worry too much.

D.Q. - Recently, the Mattes - together with Corazon Del Sol -

claimed the authorship of a piece by Dieter Roth exhibited in the
show Another Kind of Vapor at White Flag Projects, Saint
Louis, Missouri: a glass jar containing flies supposedly collected
by Dieter Roth during the seminal exhibition Staple Cheese (A
Race) (Los Angeles, 1970). The story goes that the whole
exhibition (a series of 37 suitcases filled with cheese laying on
the floor) was later thrown away in the desert by the gallery
owner. Is the piece a fake? Or the remake of a lost original,
mentioned also on Wikipedia?

Dieter Roth - I wish I had collected the flies myself! Unfortunately I

didnt. I think that the most profound experiences in life cant be
contained by gallery walls. All my life I tried to deal with this by creating
art out of decaying materials, being it cheese or chocolate. Im not
surprised nobody doubted the jar with flies was a work of mine, as it
resonates with my feeling that all objects in galleries and museum are
what remains of the work, they are not the work itself.

D.Q. - Of course, the thieves themselves have been victims of a

theft. If you befriended them on Facebook, you may have already
realized that they are not the owners of their personal accounts.
Back in 2001, when the Mattes were known only by their domain
name 0100101110101101.ORG, the German writer and theorist
Florian Cramer registered a very similar domain
(0100101110110101.ORG), and for a couple of months made
artworks and sent emails under that name. So, in order to fulfill
the request from ARTPULSE, I asked Eva and Franco Mattes
about it.
Eva and Franco Mattes - Plagiarism improves - but it still implies
ideas. In the contemporary condition of information overload, the raw
surplus of images, ideas and texts has become so great that the
selection of material to plagiarize will inevitably be as much creative
as the construction of those images, ideas and texts in the first place.
If the aim of plagiarism is to make a radical break with originality,
creativity, and its commodity value, plagiarists would have to give up
the selection process and use some automatic method instead. But
even such a methodfor example, through a computer algorithm
presupposes artistic choice. It also does not prevent the use of
resulting materials for the excess value called art. And if done in the
name of established artists, it will just reinforce their brand. For us,
plagiarism, fake, and art are just different sides of the same coin.
We welcome outside interventions in our name when they perpetuate
this perversity. The reverse is true as well: Dont believe one second
that through boycott or mere inactivity you would be able to free
yourself from the market scheme of originality and creativity
manifested through art and its double, plagiarism.

* Dirk Paesmans, Darko Maver, Joaqun Navarro-Valls, Philip Knight,

Maurizio Cattelan, Debra, Edward Kienholz ( 1994), and Dieter Roth
( 1998) have been kindly played by Eva and Franco Mattes. Eva and
Franco Mattes have been kindly played by Florian Cramer.

Tags: 0100101110101101.ORG, Darko Maver, Dieter Roch, Dirk

Paesmans, Domenico Quaranta, Edward Kienholz, Eva & Franco
Mattes, Joaqun Navarro Valls, jodi.org, Maurizio Cattelan, Philip
Knight, The Others

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Conversation with Artie Vierkant and Parker Ito
DOMENICO QUARANTA
But I could be wrong. Interview with Trevor Paglen
Maurizio Cattelan: All
 The LINK Center for the Arts of the Information Age releases
In Your Computer, by Domenico Quaranta.

One Response
1. Vaneeesa Blaylock on March 16th, 2012 at 1:09 pm:

Wow Domenico! Fantastic article. So great that you and Florian

were able to be in contact with so many people. I think their
diverse perspectives on appropriation / attribution / real / fake /
identity / all of it, really open this dialog up in a powerful way.

Ive always loved the Eva & Franco Mattes Charta book that you
worked on, and their stolen Maurizio Cattelan interview there
(which I actually stole and used myself)

Reality has had such a fakely stable quality for so long, and
works like these by fracturing the illusion of reality, allow, I think,
for the chance to discover deeper, more true, more real
realities.