A while ago, I promised I would talk more about ACEOs. If you have visited my website or seen me at an art show, you have probably seen the tiny paintings I offer for sale. You may even have bought one! But do you know that they are part of a worldwide movement?
This movement is a rather young one by art movement standards. It was started in 1997 by the Swiss artist M. Vänçi Stirnemann, who created a conceptual art project he called “Collaborative Cultural Performance”. Using his second-hand bookshop as a gallery, he held a 3 week exhibition of the 1200 art pieces he had created, and followed the exhibition with a trading session. The original idea was to allow a variety of people who would not normally do so, to participate in an ongoing art project. The idea was to trade the art, not to buy and sell it, and as they were the same size as sports trading cards, they were called Artist Trading Cards, or ATCs. A bit later that same year, Canadian artist Don Mabie took up the idea and organised a show and trading activity in Calgary, Alberta. From there, the phenomenon grew larger and several international trading shows were organised over the years. These ATC trading shows still happen today worldwide. Because of its trading component, only artists could participate by trading their creations for those of other artists, thus participating in the ongoing “collaborative performance”. In order to allow artists to profit from their small creations, and to allow non-artists to buy them, and also to avoid intellectual property infringement, in 2004 Lisa Luree renamed them “Art Cards, Editions and Originals” (ACEOs) and offered them for sale on Ebay. There are thousands of them for sale now on Ebay, some originals, and some prints. If you want to know more about the original ATC project, I invite you to visit its website https://www.artist-trading-cards.ch/ You will find a lot more about the worldwide movement, as well as the schedule of the next trading sessions. I was very surprised to learn of the deep Canadian connection, and to see that most of the upcoming events are in Canada, but on the west coast. I must say I have not yet come across anyone who had heard of ATCs or ACEOs before seeing mine! I don’t remember when or where I first heard about them, but it was no doubt on the Internet. I have never participated in a trading session, but I’m sure it would be fun. One of the goals of the original project was to get people to meet face-to-face, which I can’t wait to get back to! One thing that I didn’t find in the research I did for this was the reason for the choice of the 2.5in x 3.5 in size! I can only surmise that Mr. Stirnemann is a practical person, and he realised that all kinds of storage equipment already existed for collectors of sports trading cards (protective sleeves, boxes, displays frames, binders, etc.). It reminds me of how the original punch card size was selected. Do you know? It was the same size as the US paper money at the time, so the inventor Herman Hollerith could use existing boxes and storage equipment! Finally my computer history geekness gets put to use! I hope you enjoyed this little lesson on ATCs and ACEOs. Maybe we can trade some art cards when the time is right!
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AuthorMy name is Claire Bureau. Archives
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