Everything With Nothing

Somewhere among France’s 1840’s artist circles, there was talk of discontent and rejection of the long loved traditional forms by which many would have been trained in and ‘told’ to appreciate. It was among this group that the Realism art movement grew, from a spark to a wildfire, creating a phoenix that would become the Modern art movement.

The 1840’s were full of political and social unrest by the poor, working class under a monarchy which exploded under the Industrial Revolution. These harsh conditions created enmity between the classes, which admittedly had always been present, but with the invention of photography, it was not so easy for the employers and wider world to claim ignorance of the horrors faced daily by the employees. This was emphasized by the recycling of Auguste Comte’s theory of positivism, later called analytical philosophy, in which the systematic scientific exploration of sociology can only be truly known through direct experiences. Seeing is believing and now with this technological revelation, these secrets would no longer be kept in the dark.

This historical context gives way to the cultural context in which the desire to overturn the traditional beliefs and philosophical systems supported by these taskmasters drove home the discourse around the structure of life socially, politically, economically, and culturally. Those in the artsy circles moved towards an anti-institutional attitude and created many grassroots movements that worked to decentralize the art market.

Across the world up to this point, Modern art thrived in a capitalist society, however, this decentralization, and the democratization of the US, created discontent among artists to their contribution to the luxury goods market. This subsequently shifted the focus from the artist’s product to the artist themselves.

From here, the ‘existential artist’ became the looking glass by which artists like Jean-Paul Satre and Andy Warhol would set into motion the ideas that would bring us to 1916, and the birth of the Dada art movement which generally makes the statement that ‘anything can be art if you say it is.’

(Disclaimer: My own opinion of the art produced during the Dada movement is contempt, but the ideas around this movement are what is important to the humanism of this time period.)

All this background serves to introduce M. Vänçi Stirnemann, a Swiss artist who between April 23^rd to May 31^st, 1997, opened an exhibit of 1,200 art cards that would begin the ATC (artist trading card) movement. On the last day of the exhibit, Stirnemann held a trading session in which his cards, and the cards of other artists were traded freely and non-regulated.

One goal of ATC’s was this grassroot movement discussed earlier in which the artist is back in control of their art and more than ‘anything can be art,’ this free trade exemplified that ‘anyone can be an artist.’

Many believe this exhibit idea came from the Mail Art movement around the 1950’s and 60’s, in which small art was traded via the mail system and/or the letter, postcard, and/or stamp was the art being traded itself. Small as it was, famous contributors to the Mail Art movement include artists like Ray Johnson and Yoko Ono.

Like Mail Art, Stirnemann wanted these cards, the size of other trading cards (2.5×3.5” or 64x89mm), to be that of original work, traded for other art in person by other artists. These ATCs could be of any composition, subject, and medium so long as it fit the parameters previously detailed.

The ATC movement made its way to North America when Canadian Chuck Stake (a.k.a. Don Mabie) held his own ATC trading event in Alberta between October 16th to November 15^th, 1997, after having attended Stirnemann’s own.

From here, in 2004, a Denver, Colorado native named Lisa Luree wanted to sell her watercolor ATCs on eBay, changing the name to ACEO (art cards, editions, and originals). While ATCs and ACEOs are physically the same exact thing, the only difference is that ATCs are to be traded and ACEOs are to be sold.

Selling ACEOs on eBay, and other websites such as Tiny Gallery, AECO Originals, Nerd Worth, and directly through other social media platforms, is an actively growing market. The general idea is still to spread art of any composition, subject, and medium around as anyone can be an artist, while providing people not in the monarchy of the art market the ability to collect art independently.

The ATC movement was born out of unrest for the traditional systemic rules set by the upper classes and now it is almost a revert to the traditional need for the artist to be a real human. AI art is a true disease that has directly infected the effort of creativity people are willing to make for something original. While the technological development of photography created the ability to show real life to a wide audience, the technological era we are in currently, is doing anything but showing real life. ATCs and ACEOs may be just a part of the fight towards keeping art human, but it is not a fight without a just cause. Analytical theory tells us that we must experience something unfiltered to truly understand it. And what is art if not a physical connection between the artist and the viewer?