Douglas Paulson

FOR ART HISTORIANS

Kitty City / 2013
I gathered urban planners, artists, and a bunch of kids. Together we designed and built a city for 30 kittens. We talked, drew, and built and incredible city. It was a truly amazing project, and possibly the cutest moment ever in contemporary art.

A Rough History of the World, Jessy Cohen Style / 2013
I love this project. It's a book of collected thoughts and experiences about race, racism, borders, poverty, wealth, and what it all means. A time-jumping conversation between neighbors from Ethiopia, Iraq, Uzbekistan, and Russia in a neighborhood called Jessy Cohen.
See also: An Outsiders' History of Cologne

Trading Post / 2013
Begin with 6 things. Get comfortable in the platz. Talk, trade, bargain, let the value accrue with the stories. Repeat. Follow the thread. Accrue.
See also: Trading Friends; The One Letter Delivery Show

A Pedestrian's Guide To Public Art, Seoul / 2012
The most authoritative (and inclusive) book about the public art in Seoul, the city with the most public art in the world. Art Historians, professionals, and kids at the pizza shop break it down: how it got there, who benefits, & who decides what public space looks like.
See also: Culture Parasite Hijack Machine

Culture Parasite Hijack Machine / 2012
aka: Seoul Art Space: Art Space
A proposition: let real live artists intervene in, remix, and re-imagine Seoul's public art. Make those dead objects catalysts for social and participatory cultural moments. The Culture Parasite Hijack machine can turn a sculpture into a live/work space.
See also: In This Hello America; A Pedestrian's Guide To Public Art, Seoul

Trading Friends (is that your stuff in my house?!) / 2012
Begin with two identical objects and two names. Deliver, trade. Now you've got two new objects and two new names. Repeat. Follow the thread.
See also: Trading Post; The One Letter Delivery Show

King Kong Tingbjerg / 2012
Take the 2A bus to the edge of town and get off when you find the entrance to Tingbjerg. It’s the only road in, so you’ll have to follow it. You’ll find friendly people, a few shops, imagery you may have seen on the news, and a single high-rise. Now watch: King Kong is coming to Tingbjerg, and she’s going to climb that building.

Congress of Collectives / 2011
I initiated and collaboratively organized this expansive gathering of members from over 30 different collectives from around the world. We came together from the US, Europe and the Middle East to to examine the ways we work together, talk, eat, work, learn, and connect.
See also: The Tent Show

In This Hello America / 2011
We re-imagined Sasson Soffer's modernist sculpture (Hello America, 1980) as an inhabitable architecture, momentarily transforming it into a framework catalyzing collaborative actions, collisions, discussions, performances, interventions, happy hippy bbqs, and examinations. All of it inside another work, turned inside out.
See also: Flushtopia; Culture Parasite Hijack Machine

Gedser: Time To Move Your Butt / 2010
aka: The Tricksters.
The scene is Gedser, a small town on the very edge of Denmark. There are no trains here, no schools, empty streets; ghost town. Three simultaneous events: A king is troubled by a gang of tricksters who take matters into their own hands. A public park appears out of thin air. A book asks: how does this story end?

The New Claes Oldenball / 2010
“What kind of art are you for?” We updated Claes's list, and balled up the answers.

An Outsider's History of Cologne / 2010
Park your truck in the platz and wait. People will appear and they'll tell you everything. Just listen (it's the history of the world).
See also: A Rough History of The World, (Jessy Cohen style)

The Market Crash Tour / 2010
A tour of markets, crashes, and a stranger handcuffed to a briefcase of ca$h: follow the money, it's a wild ride.

txt mstrpc lbry / 2009
I love this project. I maintain a library of masterpieces that have been re-imagined as 160-character txt messages. Anyone can submit a txt mstrpc, or read one. Novel; poem; painting; movie; tv show; … what work do you love? Tell a stranger, in our new common language: txt.

Flushtopia / 2009
aka: The Undiscovered Atoll of Flushtopia
Inhabiting Robert Moses' modernist vision; formerly the Worlds' Fair grounds projecting a bold American future; now a sprawling park of relics. We dismantled part one of these relics, and rearranged its bones into a floating constellation of islands: a living, collaborative, people-space out of a dead space in the heart of a metropolis.
See also: In This Hello America; Everyone Can Use The Harbor

The One Letter Delivery Show / 2009
3 intrepid postmen deliver sentiments from person-to-person, all over Iceland on enormous postcards. If you have only one letter to send, send it BIG.
See also: Trading Friends (is that your stuff in my house?)

Everyone Can Use The Harbor / 2008
aka: The Harbor Laboratory
6 months of ever-expanding cultural action to make the waterway of Copenhagen MORE public. There's also a video describing what was happening behind closed doors here.
See also: The Sea-Sick Seamonster, Romantic Dinner, Adventure Squad; Flushtopia.

Let's Meet Halfway: lunch on a lake, somewhere in the Czech Republic / 2008
Imagine a line crossing borders, bodies of water, and language barriers. This is a line that connects the homes of two strangers. Put a dot exactly halfway between the two homes. Meet there for lunch. One brings drinks, one brings food. It's an adventure. Don't be late.

The Tent Show / 2007
We organized a camping trip (in a major institution); a tight community came together for the first time.
See also: Congress of Collectives

Archive / 2005 (and growing)
An ever growing archive of everything. A labyrinth of ideas made words made physical, stacked up.

Trading Friends TEST (is that your stuff in my house?!) / 2012
Begin with two identical objects and two names. Deliver, trade. Now you've got two new objects and two new names. Repeat. Follow the thread.
See also: Trading Post; The One Letter Delivery Show