9/29 blog entry

For this blog entry i will write about Copystand: An Autonomous Manufacturing Zone. This project is started by the artist Stephanie Syjuco. This takes place at the Frieze art fair in London. Copystand is a project that takes up a gallery space that is half a workshop, and half a showroom. The artists involved make "copies" of other artworks in the show out of far less valuable materials. After they are produced they are put on the other half of the gallery space and sold for much lower prices than the original. Stephanie's idea behind this was not to make money but to explore how people find value in works and also how works are made and artists voice behind them. The show was a success in that it gathered many peoples attention and made them ask questions.

This project is very interesting to me for the fact of how it explores and presents artistic voice. By presenting half of the gallery space as a workshop it shows how the different artists, including Stephenie Syjuco, create these representations of other artworks. It also gives the artists a chance to put in their own twists to the pieces and their own style. Also by selling the pieces in the space right next to this workshop it gives the viewers and buyers a chance to see how the works are not actual copies. Some may say that these are just cheap knockoffs that Stephanie is using to make some money, a scam if you will. However this is not the point of Copystand. The point is to show people, artists and non artists alike, that everyone has their own style even if it is a copy of somthing else.