UIC Gallery 400 40th anniversary

Irena Haiduk's work is invested in relationships between aesthetics and economy, image ecology and the way that economic infrastructures leave clear aesthetic marks. She believes that to work in an aesthetic field rooted in making desires, to make art today, is to share the responsibility for what aesthetic economies maintain. She directs Yugoexport, a blind and non-aligned oral corporation whose founding logic is equivalence, loyalty, and familial solidarity between people and things. Initiated as a copy of the former Yugoslav apparel and weapons manufacturer Jugoeksport, Yugoexport is formally incorporated in the United States (where corporations are people), launched in Paris, and headquartered in New York. Haiduk attended earned her MFA from UIC. 


About this work: 
Carrier Scarf :
This 100% silk scarf can be transacted alone or as a part of the work called Carrier (2021). This economy uses frottage imaging, and, when installed, allows visitors to transfer the Carrier story and images from a set of engraved marble tables. Once the rubbing is traced onto cinefoil (black aluminum) or paper, it is crumpled, placed in the scarf's hand, wrapped around a metal handle, and carried home. At home, the scarf is unwrapped and worn, the handle nailed into the wall, the rubbing un-crumpled and held to the handle with magnets. Nothing is wasted. The scarf, like others, is dedicated to artists who provide reference and ground for Yugoexport's work. This one depicts a left hand, dedicated to Ursula K. Le Guin whose visionary work nourishes the world. 

Rock Candle:
This candle is another collaboration between Yugoexport and Malte van der Meyden. It draws from the text Carrier by Irena Haiduk in 2021 and is a cast of a rock she was sitting by while writing. The candle is shades of pistachio green, made from canola wax cast, sand, and cotton. 

Bon Ton Mais Non:
An 80-point manifesto on polite art. Like every intimate dinner party, Bon Ton Mais Non requires one symphony orchestra, a pastry chef, a large mirror, and the fact of cannibal sirens. This is the first book Irena Haiduk wrote and transacted through flexible pricing, a samizdat published in 2013 with a second edition published by Yugoexport in 2016. After the transaction, cross out the word “hope” printed on the book’s front, and beneath it, in large black letters, write the first name of the reader. If they laugh, they are a friend.