An investigation into the relationship between art and entertainment.
An American tradition, an "ice cream social" is an occasion for the members of a community to gather together to relax with friends and enjoy confectionery refreshments. David Robbins' Ice Cream Socials do all this while adding a layer of something else... They started in 1993 when a Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor was used for an exhibition of paintings based on the company's graphics. Over the following decade they expanded into live events, a TV pilot, and a feature movie script. These derivations, together with digital designs presented here along with a novella from 1998, map the full extent of this ironic utterance.
In his famous 1986 work Talent (eighteen show biz-style "headshots" of the New York art scene), David Robbins equated artists such as Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, and Richard Prince with entertainers ; the ICS deepen this investigation into the relationship between art and entertainment. These two projects, as well as David Robbins' practice in general, mark an important step in the critical genealogy of the entrance of the art system into the popular culture industry.
Published on the occasion of the artist's solo exhibition at the Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris.
David Robbins (born 1957 in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin) is an artist and writer who was one of the first to investigate the art world's entrance into the culture industry. His work has been exhibited worldwide. He is a long-standing contributor to magazines such as
Real Life,
Purple Prose and
Artforum.
