Black Friday

Exercises in Hermetics

organized by Christoph Keller, Revolver

Opening on Friday 9th July 2004, at 7pm
Exhibition from 10th July - 11th September 2004
Open: Wed - Sat, 11am - 6pm
Summer vacation from 4th - 24th August 2004


What is Black Friday?
Black Friday, name applied to a short-lived financial crisis in the United States that occurred on Friday, September 24, 1869. The panic was precipitated when two financial speculators, James Fisk and Jay Gould, attempted to corner the U.S. gold market. On September 20 they began purchasing gold in New York City; by September 24 they controlled enough of the available supply in the city to bid up the price from about 140 to 163y. This rapid increase in the price of gold threw the stock exchange into confusion, and the prices of com-modities fluctuated wildly. The inflationary run on gold was halted toward the close of the business day when U.S. Secretary of the Treasury George Sewall Boutwell announced that the federal government had made million of its gold reserves available for trading. Fisk and Gould probably made a profit of about million by their manipulations, but many businesspeople claimed to have been ruined by the panic.

What is Black Friday?
The day after Thanksgiving in the United States, is frequently referred to as Black Friday.
General Use: One of the major U.S. holiday shopping days. The day many U.S. consumers begin Christmas shopping. The day is heavily promoted by retailers.
Origin: The origin of Black Friday comes from the shift to profitability during the holiday season. Black Friday was when retailers went from being unprofitable, or "in the red," to being profitable, or "in the black", at a time when accounting records were kept by hand and red indicated loss and black profit.


For the project »Black Friday «, the Frankfurt publisher Christoph Keller invited around 40 international artists to produce a work responding to the notions »economy« and »hermetic relations«. The artists, whose work deals with relations between design, form, structure and typography, should produce their work in the economically simplest manner: as pdf data. In this way, the resulting projects question the relationship between economy, form and hermetics in relation to the inherent aspects of their production, reception/mediation and organization.

The title of the exhibition doesn’t merely define the content, but is developed in the exhibition concept further. During the exhibition, all the works - therefore the whole exhibition - can be found under to download freely, so that each user can put together their own exhibition by selecting and combining as they like. In the gallery space, the pdf printouts will be shown in an exhibition architecture by the artists Tobias and Raphael Danke.
The basic structure of the project, the relationship to the postscript medium, and the economic manner of organisation, question contemporary concepts, and the traditional structure of exhibition organisation, presentation and marketing.

Participating artists: Anton Vidokle (USA), Carey Young/Massimo Sterpi (UK/US/I), Carol Bove (USA), Cerith Wyn Evans (UK), Christoph Steinegger (A), Claude Closky (F), Daniel Herskowitz (USA), David Hatcher (NZ), Derek Barnett (CA), Edgar Arceneaux (USA), Florian Pumhösl (A), Gardar Eide Einarsson (N), Haegue Yang (Korea), Heiko Karn (D), Helen Mirra (USA), Henrik Olesen (DK), Ibon Aranberri (ES), Jakob Kolding (DK), Jop van Bennekom (NL), Katja Strunz (D), Klaus Weber (D), Kirstine Röpstorff (DK), Liam Gillick (UK), Ludovic Burel (F), Manuel Raeder (D), Marianna Deball (MX), Markus Amm (D), Markus Schinwald (A), Markus Weisbeck (D), Martin Boyce (UK), Martin Neumaier (D), Mathias Poledna (A), Michael Hakimi (D), Michael S. Riedel (D), Michael Stevenson (NZ), Norm (CH), Olaf Nicolai (D), Roman Schramm (D), Sebastian Romo (MX), Seth Price (USA), Simon D. Møller (DK), Thomas Bayrle (D), Tim Lee (CAN), Tue Greenfort (DK), Vier5 (F), Will Stuart (NL) . Display: Tobias und Raphael Danke (D)