Revolution Fleamarket
An initial discussion, of course in a coffee shop, began with consternation that words like "revolutionary" and "genius" get thrown around, and have long become divorced from what they actually used to mean. They've become cheapened. Everyone's "genius" if they do something vaguely well, and every technical gadget is a "revolution".
In our day to day exchanges, we are repeatedly getting sold something that isn't remotely what it pretends to be. Are we more satisfied with the packaging than the content? This extends farther beyond the concept of "revolution", to almost every cultural, ideological issue. We remember that subversive thought, along with the concept of the "underground", used to be something of extreme value. Today, if you don't have a mainstreamed blog that you can sell into a book deal within a one year turn around from launch, your vision risks being pronounced a failure.
The name "Revolution Fleamarket" alludes to the fact that we have to still — we want to still — rummage for the real items of substance. We can't just get handed them on a plate, or in a 10-best-of list.
The start of this collection was to see, in a limited space of time, how much revolution one can intentionally acquire. And what it looks like.
We tried to buy the revolution. This is what we got.

Christine Hill
Berlin, March 2008

"The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall."
— Ernesto *Che* Guevara

This is a collection-in-progress. Feel free to send your ideas for submissions to
revolution@volksboutique.org

Works in the exhibition:

Revolution Fleamarket
An inventory of products which "sell revolution".
Presented on a red pushcart display which mimics a street stand.
Made by Volksboutique. 2008.

Revolution Fleamarket Drawings
A series of images referencing the results via internet when searching for "revolution".
Made by hand in the Volksboutique Werkstatt. 2008.

Many thanks to Hannah Leonie Prinzler and Felix Sattler for their invaluable assistance in all things Volksboutique.

About the artist:

Christine Hill is the proprietor of Volksboutique, a workshop located in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin and in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Volksboutique examines concepts of “value” in our culture and re-invests discarded appurtenances with meaning and use. The project is to point viewers’ attention to specific objects and events in life that risk being overlooked as being too quotidian or too common. Her interest is in defining select arenas where art should be lived. A sort of hobby archivist and librarian, she is invested in keeping inventories of certain daily life phenomena.
Volksboutique was included in the 2007 Venice Biennale under the curation of Robert Storr.
The monograph publication "Minutes — Work by Christine Hill" was published in conjunction with the Biennale presentation. It is published by Hatje/Cantz, was designed by Markus Dreßen and features texts by Christine Hill along with an introductory essay by Rick Moody.
New work by Christine and Volksboutique will be shown at the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore (May 2008); Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York (October 2008); The Art Institute of Chicago (May 2009).
Christine is Professor and Chair of the department Media, Trend and Public Appearance at the Bauhaus-University Weimar. Her students conduct a number of Volksboutique's "Organizational Ventures" from their workshop there.

You may consult www.volksboutique.org for further information and news.