Off Center

part one

part two

I found an odd little series on YouTube called Each & Every One of You, which the creators describe as “a sincere but irreverent 1980s cable TV-style show” that “teaches ordinary people how to make contemporary installation art.” The host, Don Goodes — a former art critic and self-styled Mr. Rogers living in Montreal — dedicates this two-part episode (warning: total running time is about 30 minutes) to what he calls Political Accumulation Installation.

“We begin by taking a stand — the stand of criticizing Western culture for its misdoings,” Goodes says, before leading viewers through the other three essential steps to contemporary installation art: Making aesthetic decisions, developing the concept and, ultimately, making the work. My favorite segment, in Part 2, is dedicated to “rejected artists,” featuring interviews with artists “whose projects were rejected by art galleries, art councils or whatever.”