BANK

BANK was a collaborative art group from 1994 – 2003, based in London

2022 Gallerie Neu, Berlin – 3rd Feb – 9th April Status Quo
We wanted to paint the walls pink and blue and have a golf buggy in the gallery but all we got was this white cube graveyard’

——-

The BANK Fax-Bak Service, 2021, Lenz Press

“Between 1998 and 1999, the London-based art collective BANK operated The BANK Fax-Bak Service. For the project, the group’s members, Simon Bedwell, John Russell and Milly Thompson proof-read and copy-edited more than 300 press releases published by galleries in London and New York. The procedure was simple: after adding their mocking corrections, the artists faxed the promotional texts back to the respective galleries. The BANK Fax-Bak Service exposes the art market’s (ongoing) Sisyphean effort to legitimise itself through boasting, self-important and nonsensical language. Published and distributed by Lenz Press this volume is a comprehensive record of BANK’s notorious project from the late 1990s.” – Lenz Press

 

“In 352 pages, learn how to piss off a lot of galleries” – Gallien Déjean

Edited by Gallien Déjean and Tenzing Barshee, and co-published with Treize (Paris), Gallerie Neu, and Kunsthalle

Zürich. Designed by Dan Solbach. Full colour, 24 x 31 cm, 352 pages, softcover ISBN 978-88-945353-5-8 €38

SOLD OUT

Lenz Press

The BANK Fax-Bak Service is available in Tate Library  at Tate Britain. Tate has 12 fax backs in their collection: Tate BANK Fax Backs

Installation view, BANK, Status Quo. We wanted to paint the walls pink and blue and have a golf buggy in the gallery but all we got was this white cube graveyard, Galerie Neu, Berlin, 2022

A selection of the Fax Backs were exhibited as a group at Gallerie Neu, Berlin – February – April 2022

1998, ‘studio allegories’, photo print, dimensions variable
Left to right: Simon Bedwell/Milly Thompson/John Russell

1995, Zombie Golf invite, riso on fluorescent paper, A4

BANK invites, relics, catalogues, publications 1991-2003

 

1997/8, Recovering ourselves: group-empathy paintings (No: ?), oil on padded canvas

 

The BANK tabloid (#19 from 36), 1996 – 97, A4, photocopy
1999, The BANK Fax-bak service (London/NY)

2012, wall text from ‘In Numbers: Serial Publications by Artists Since 1955’, ICA, London
2012, SELF-PORTRAIT, Relics & Archives, Treize, Paris

 

2013, ‘The Banquet Years: Relics and Archives’, Mgk Elaine, Basel & Motinternational, London Left, ‘BANK TV’, 1996; right, BANK posters, 1997/8, A0, photocopy/screenprint

 

The Ambassador, 2002, acrylic on canvas, 2 x 3.3m
2002, John Moores 22, prizewinner
‘Stop short-changing us. Popular culture is for idiots. We believe in art’, 1998, Gallerie Poo Poo, London

Links to BANK’s work in Tate Collections:

Faxbacks: http://www.tate.org.uk/search?type=artwork&aid=20528

The BANK archive and copies of The BANK ‘tabloid’ are held within the Tate Archive collections: http://archive.tate.org.uk/TateArchiveUncatCollList.pdf

Copies of The BANK tabloid are additionally held in the Library Journals special collection

BANK, 2001

BANK charts the progress of BANK through a series of 27 shows, taking a journey through its obsession with the mechanics, politics and etiquette of making art, and of making art visible. BANK examines art as collective practice, and curation as art practice.

Paperback, 112 pages, by BANK, published by Black Dog Publishing, ISBN 9781901033427
1901033422 | 1-901033-42-2 | 978-1901033427 | 978-1-901033-42-7

Available through https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781901033427/