Description

A facsimile of the GALA Committees mock auction catalog for an artistic intervention into the props and plots of Melrose Place

Originally published in a limited run in 1998, Primetime Contemporary Art documented In the Name of the Place, a radical two-year intervention by a group of artists, initiated by Mel Chin and known as the GALA Committee, on the primetime television show Melrose Place. This extremely rare artists book is reproduced for the first time as a facsimile edition.
The artists comprising the GALA Committee worked with the producers of Melrose Place to develop a series of political works that were used as props and plot devices across two seasons of the show, providing surreptitious commentary on reproductive rights, HIV/AIDS, the Gulf War, domestic terrorism, corporate malfeasance and substance abuse. Some of these topics were banned by the FCC at the time, and the groups works allowed for the artists and the show to create political commentary that went unnoticed by censors. The artworks they produced were exhibited at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art in 1997 and then sold at an auction at Sothebys to support several charities. Primetime Contemporary Art was created by Mel Chin and Helen Nagge as a mock auction catalog documenting the artwork made for the show and the conceptual framework of the GALA Committee.

Author: Mel Chin
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Primary Information
Published: 04/04/2023
Pages: 40
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 10.80h x 8.40w x 0.20d
ISBN: 9781737797975
Language: English