by David Brits

The choice of independent artist-run blank projects seems peculiar given their experimental art practice-based ethos. It finds itself immediately at odds with the art fair’s economy of trade and exchange.
The Art Fair, diverging their program from the traditional art fair model, have invited the gallery to participate as one of the Special Projects on show over the weekend. Curated by Kathryn Smith, Christian Nerf and Francis Burger, blank has put together a special exhibition entitled Bad Form: Things and Stuff, which both plays off the politics and questionable ethics of the art market.
In contrast to the predominantly static display in most other gallery stalls, Bad Form features a diverse program of performance, installation and interventions, by the likes of the risqué Barend de Wet, Liam Gillick, and art theorist to the stars Andrew Lamprecht. These very temporal artworks replace one another throughout the day, and are often performed or displayed simultaneously. So, whereas most other galleries in the fair find themselves presenting a ‘best of’ of their artists stables, visitors will have to come to all three days of the fair to see the whole of the Bad Form project, in all its quirky, dissident glory.
Given all the haggling that is bound to characterize such an art fair, Bad Form becomes a welcome break from the hum-drum of art market buying and artistic conservatism. It functions as a critique to the very nature of the art market; this cutthroat overlap between commerce and the creative.