Taxing Art

Regulating art, design and innovation

The question ‘Is it design or is it art?’ has become increasingly immaterial as the evolution of creative production continuously collapses the boundaries of outmoded definitions. The free flow of ideas – the ability for concepts to travel across continents, to communicate and provoke internationally – is essential to the process of innovation. Even while the world’s creative industries and studios broaden our horizons and expand possibilities, the realm of bureaucracy – comprising mundane and often obscure trade laws, customs procedures, and government polices &ndsh; acts as a conservative check on the freedom of experimentation and innovation.

Our Taxing Art research explores the convoluted kingdom of taxes and international customs laws, which continue to define man-made objects and creative practices against archaic categories. The goal of this project is to bring to light and create a dialogue surrounding commonplace bureaucratic and economic obstacles imposed on creative practices.

For Design Miami/ Basel 2010, we launch the seeds of this project in earnest through the creation of three ‘thought objects’ designed to embody and confound several outmoded customs laws. As these objects cross the border between Germany and Switzerland, they will also pass through the scrutiny of customs agents that will be forced to decide whether the objects should be categorised as art or as design.

The three pieces – Box of Loose Hammers, Chanimals, and T228/89 – were all conceived as reactions to specific policy that leaves little room for multidisciplinary practice. The cast translucent cardboard box-cum-coffee table, Box of Loose Hammers, filled to the brim with, as the title suggests, loose hammers, brings into question terms of utility and material intention as they play into the definition of the object itself. The near anthropomorphic Chanimals are a whimsical take on the notion of standardisation and the perception of functionality. Lastly, the 119 rotating pyramids that comprise the T228/89 table can, with the swipe of a hand, subvert the use of object, instantaneously changing it from design object into sculpture. Taking a playful approach to everyday conventions, the table can easily be classified as a design object or an artwork, but in legal terms, never both.

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