The initial presentation of Art Chat was part of a larger performative event, Temporary Situation at Gallerie Etienne Huit on August 11, 2001.
Art Chat was a performance and video presented by Rosella Vi on a tour bus in front of a pop-up gallery ("Etienne Huit") during the night of the opening of the show. Presentations of Art Chat were offered every 20 minutes.
For Art Chat, Rosella, created by Micol Hebron to be a Prada-bitch stereotype of a gallerina, conducts an informative and instructional presentation on the ins and outs of going to an art opening and considering art today. Like Andrea Fraser’s institutional critique, Rosella’s presentation rides the fence between sarcasm and sincerity as it explores the often never discussed idiosyncratic nuances of the contemporary art world.
On board the bus, each passenger found a didactic card in the ‘seat backs in front of them’. This card gave an iconographic crash course in ‘Kinds of Art’, ‘How to View Art’, ‘Going to an Art Show’, and ‘Etiquette’. Rosella gave a step-by-step explanation of these categories, as a flight attendance does for safety procedures. At the end of the 10 minute presentation, the bus passengers were shown a video interview between Rosella Vi and Drew Blume, which further explicated the issues discussed in the performance.
