COP TALK
Recruitment presentation, silkscreen posters, 2005–ongoing
Silkscreen poster for 'Coptalk', Visual Art Academy Meuron, Neuchatel, Switzerland, 2018
Since 2005, and on numerous occasions worldwide, Evans has invited representatives from national police forces to give recruitment presentations at art academies.
A letter is sent out to a contact within an art school. ("For a country to have an effective police force, its employees should reflect the demographics of society.") This is accompanied by a second letter – to be adapted and translated accordingly and sent out by the art school – inviting a representative of the local police force to offer vocational advice to the art students. The former entertains the possibility of the latter’s future in the police force.
Reviews
Texts
CHRONOLOGY
Art Academy of Meuron, Neuchatel, Switzerland Art Academy of Nurnberg. Germany The Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laughaire, Co. Dublin Taipei National University of the Arts, Taipei, Taiwan Ljubljana Academy, Ljubljana, Slovenia Academie for Visual Arts, Maastricht, the Netherlands Centrale Academie Ontmoeting, Breda, the Netherlands Koninklijke Academy of Fine Art, Antwerp, Belgium La Cambre, École nationale supérieure des arts visuels, Brussels, Belgium Pratt Institute, New York, USA Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany The Royal University College of Fine Arts, Stockholm, Sweden Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Twenty 6 3x 48 cm silkscreened posters announce “Séance de recrutement
de la police neuchâteloise, destinée aux étudiants en art visuels de l’académie de Meuron”, or applicable local phrasing; one is hung at the school.
The poster depicts a landscape with what could be described as a rock or a sculpture, with a stationary Lamborghini Countach (painted in the livery of the Dutch police force).
Cop Talk was originally commissioned by the Reitveld Academy, Amsterdam, in 2005 with the assistance of Linda Van Deursen. It has subsequently been commissioned for various institutions worldwide including Berlin Biennial, Taipei Biennial and Creative Time, New York ('Hey Hey Glossolalia, Exhibiting the Voice', 2008, curated by Mark Beasley).
Christy Lange, '5th Berlin Biennial: Mes nuits sont plus belles que vos jours', frieze, 9 September 2008
'Chris Evans in conversation with Will Bradley', Contemporary Sculpture - Artists' Writings and Interviews, eds. Jon Wood and Julia Kelly, Hatje Cantz, 2020
'Chris Evans: Socially Awkward', Dan Kidner, Art & Research 2, no. 1, Summer 2008 (pdf link)
22nd May 2018
8th January 2015
The National College of Art and Design, Dublin
The Dublin Insitute of Technology, Grangemorgan
9th December 2014
15th June 2010
28th May 2010
20th May 2010
26th March 2009
6th May 2008
5th May 2008
30th April 2008
25th April 2008
6th December 2007
16th March 2006
24th March 2005