
Dismantling the Corporate State and Other Amusements at Columbia College Chicago’s Center for Book & Paper Arts is a one-woman exhibition of work by Anne Elizabeth Moore, artist, media activist, editor of the now-defunct Punk Planet, founding editor of the Best American Comics series, and author of Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity. The exhibition includes zines, video, and ephemera that chronicle Moore’s tireless work as a thorn in the side of corporate media and marketing culture and as an advocate of DIY culture.
Emblematic of Moore’s corporate parodies is “Operation: Pocket Full of Wishes,” in which she produced cards parodying shopping guide cards at the American Girl Place store. Her cards, displayed in the exhibition, offered such consumer goods as Domestic Partner Benefits, Free Tampons, Ample Career Opportunities, Safe, Legal Abortion Access, and Equal Pay for Equal Work. The project eventually caused her to be banned from the store.
Instead of a traditional book tour for her Hey Kidz! Buy This Book: A Radical Primer on Corporate and Governmental Propaganda and Artistic Activism for Short People, Moore went on a Radical Education Roadshow, teaching kids to create their own media with a zine called “How to make this very zine.” The show includes a plethora of examples of small zines made by kids she worked with. In a similar vein, but with more overtly political ramifications, is the collaborative project “New Girl Law,” in which young Cambodian women leaders collaborated with Moore on a revision of the Cambodian “Girl Law,” a restrictive code of behavior that, while no longer officially law, continues forcefully to shape gender norms. Together Moore and the 32 Cambodian women produced a text that was then letter-pressed and hand-bound in Rhode Island and calls for “basic human rights, gender equity, the eradication of corruption, and funding for cultural production…a re-envisioning of a potential future for the country.”
The exhibition also displays documentation from The Unlympics, held in winter 2009 as a series of alternative games and open discussions on Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid that brought attention to the potential cost to taxpayers of the event, the displacement of low-income residents, and issues of incarceration in Illinois. The Unlympics included such sports as Class-Conscious Kickball, Live Action Role Play Family Dinner, and The Solitary Isolation Game. Planning is underway for Summer Unlympics to take place in September 2009.
“Amusement” is key: Moore consistently mixes a sense of fun in with utopian imagining and fierce critique, demonstrating that activism does not have to be dour. While most of her work is thoroughly collaborative, she also spoofs corporate brand identity by making her personal identity a brand. At the exhibition’s closing festivities, on Friday, August 21 at 6:30pm, Anne Elizabeth Moore will present The Anne Elizabeth Moore Award for Excellence in Awesomeness. In the running this year are Anne Elizabeth Moore and some candidates other than Anne Elizabeth Moore.
The exhibition opened June 19 and runs until August 22, 2009. Columbia College Chicago’s Center for Book & Paper Arts is located at 1104 S. Wabash (2nd floor), in Chicago, IL.