“Sixth Tableau: But they saw the usage rights and took cognizance of them. How monochrom stopped playing Mr. Niceguy and brought home a shred of empowerment”

In January 2006 monochrom decided to transform the Lord Jim Lodge into Lord Jim Lodge powered by monochrom, thanks be to the growing economization tendencies inherent in even the most seemingly resistant art practices. The strategic aim of this transformation process was to reinvent the Lord Jim Lodge as an expression of a bohemian 1980s antiart etc. art and as a symptomatic defiant posture for the sake of a defiant posture, melting its frozen symbolic capital and letting it flow into new contexts and entrepreneurial concerns. You know the jargon. And most of all: because of its high symbolic net worth (which is constituted predominantly from the association with the names Kippenberger, Oehlen, Schlick and Bauer), the Lord Jim Lodge was to be integrated primarily as an economically structured sub-enterprise into the monochrom organizational chart, with the goal of generating capital, last but not least for the purpose of consolidating the monochrom budget, which habitually was in the red. Thus (thanks to the inspiration provided by a rudimentary doorbell nameplate on the apartment door of Daniel Fabry and Anika Kronberger) the Berlin-based art consulting agency Teyssandier-Springer was called to life and entrusted with representing the economic and trademark interests of Lord Jim Lodge powered by monochrom. In the form of this not so unrealistic company, monochrom advised itself to start a legal campaign and drop a few subtle threats in the right places. A press release was drawn up and sent out:

“Shortly before the artist‘s death, monochrom purchased from Jörg Schlick in a package deal all rights pertaining to intellectual property, copyright, trademark, and usage in accordance with national and international regulations.

These include:
the trademark: “Lord Jim Lodge”
the trademark logo: “Sonne Busen Hammer”
(Sun Breasts Hammer)
the trademark slogan: “Keiner hilft keinem”
(No one helps nobody)

Furthermore, additional agreements were made devolving to monochrom any and every legal claim pertaining to resale rights involving the artwork “Lord Jim Lodge”.

In practical terms this means: without the agreement of the owners of the trademarks specified above, those works that contain these trademarks may not be used in any way. This applies first and foremost to reproduction and exhibition.
Legal action is being considered against galleries such as the NGBK in Berlin, Galerie Bleich-Rossi in Vienna and the Forum Stadtpark in Graz, which in view of planned upcoming exhibitions run in danger of infringing on these rights.

This approach is intended to create a foundation for franchising concepts and artistic „re-start-ups“. Thus, in cooperation with Teyssandier-Springer, monochrom is investigating the acquisition of additional trademarks with a high symbolic value but low real capital volume. Netbase (Institute for New Cultural Technologies, Vienna) and the artist group ubermorgen.com (Prix Ars Electronica 2005) have been named as potential precarized candidates for acquisition.”

In a concentrated effort at the monochrom strategy session held at the remote Alpine bed-and-breakfast Tirolhof in Reichenau/Lower Austria (which, by the way, we cannot recommend), a mailing from Teyssandier-Springer was formulated and signed by monochrom member Frank Apunkt Schneider in the name of Frank Teyssandier. He didn’t even have to go to that much trouble, since his name is somehow so similar anyway. Nevertheless: it was quite a job, since there were countless galleries around the world that thought they could earn a fortune selling Kippenberger paintings with our “Sun Breasts Hammer” symbol on them while leaving us out in the cold again.