DIY as Artistic Practice, not Aesthetic

• Talk about doing it yourself, how you can set up a show, how you can set up anything from an art fair, to a magazine, to your own Tate Modern

• 24 Paintings in 24 Hours (first show out of RCA)

• Artistic practice as DIY - idea of communicating the urgency you get in the studio

• Find ways of getting through to people, breaking down the barrier between a bunch of dull paintings in a gallery, and actually feeling something

• Led up to this idea that you can do pretty much anything you want

• It's not DIY like, I like B&Q, to knock up a bit of woodwork, its DIY as the idea of empowering yourself to be able to do anything you like

• A lot of friends and students say "I want to do a show" "how do I do a show?" "how do I get my work out there?" - who do you want to show the work to? what do you want to achieve?

• You can choose to do it yourself - thinking outside of galleries, someone's got to give me a show

Free Art Fair

• Set up my own art fair. What's the most diametrically opposed thing to the Frieze Art Fair? Which is all about sales figures, giving away the art at the end.

• It mostly consisted of phoning people up and saying "this is my idea, do you want to help out?" and people respond out of kindness, or because they like your idea

Joffe's run-down of DIY

1. Idea (talk to people, do they respond). Listen to their feedback.
2. Artists (don't ask don't get)
3. Venue (pound shop or Barbican)
4. Press Release (keep it simple and descriptive)
5. Tell people (website, social media, local media, national media, think big, think small) What do you want to happen? Selling or writing or people seeing or what? Keep approaching PR from different angles
6. The show's the thing. Do is because it's worth doing. Leave some energy for the hang.
7. What next? Repeat yourself ad infinitum or do something different

• The most important thing is art. There's no point in all of this unless you make some decent art

Collaborations and Commissions

• Other people have good ideas, and you learn stuff from them

• Giving up some of the control by working with others can make good outcomes

• The more stuff you do, the more you come up with ideas and new ways of working

• Publicity is good because people find out about what you're doing, but it shouldn't be solely designed for that