By Dadara
Part shaman, part banker, Dadara’s is an animating, provocative and irreverent presence at the BE FESTIVAL 2014, playfully engineering a collective space of exchange. There are a number of ways to encounter the work: live, online, and in your wallet; at scheduled moments or in fabric of the festival experience itself. You will never look at a piece of art, money or the passing of time in the same way again.
Dadara will be keeping office hours throughout Week Two, in BE FESTIVAL’s gallery space converted from the The REP’s backstage Paintstore. The Arena Gallery at mac, also hosts his first major UK exhibition 5 July-31 Aug.
The Exchanghibition Bank Booth
In times when governments have no money for the arts but lots of money for banks, a well travelled bank booth makes its way from the Nevada desert to open for business in Birmingham: the business of serving art, and the art of turning art into money.
Transformoney Tree
As we stumble through crisis, lost on the path of infinite economic growth on a planet of finite resources, you are invited to contribute your banknotes to a cumulative sculpture, transforming their value by creating a beautiful object. The tree casts the true and time-bound worth of money into stark perspective against concepts of natural order and intrinsic value.
Hourtopia – www.hourtopia.com
Are we as conscious about spending our time as we are our money? The dread of the watched clock and time wasted is thrown aside in search of those moments when life ticks in harmony with the heartbeat of our soul. Hourtopia offers you the once-in-a-lifetime chance to capture your magic hour and share those priceless hopes and memories with your loved ones. Forever. Dadara will introduce the project and open the main programme of BE FESTIVAL 2014 with an exclusive performance event, One Minute of Time for Yourself.
Karma
An alternative currency is in circulation throughout the festival’s second week. Trade in your grubby and anonymous legal tender for Dadara’s colourful, limited edition, customisable BE FESTIVAL currency, The Karma. Each time a note changes hands challenges our conventional assumptions around spending, reasserting the notion of exchange over mere transaction. The Karma investigates currency’s value in motion, its ability to connect groups and to tell and maintain stories.
Paintings and drawings
Dadara’s background in striking visual design serves to both document a journey through, and develop his own understanding of, an obsession with money as it relates to the artists’ place in the world and the intrinsic value of creative practice.
About the Artist
Dadara’s designs and paintings, made for the 90s underground international house-music scene, led to his first exhibition (of 10 to date) at the Reflex Modern Art Gallery, Amsterdam. He has since shown work in Paris, Berlin, Stuttgart, Miami and New York, with commissions from clients including BMW, Absolut Vodka and Greenpeace.
In the past 10 years, Dadara has mainly focused on painting and large interactive art projects that provide a commentary on contemporary society. Topics include governmental control, lack of transparency, privacy issues and regulations, as well as value creation, money and dreams.