“Whatever It Takes features Steelers tattoos, fan garb, homemade football shrines … everything you can imagine and some things you can’t. Visitors are invited to consider Steelers fandom in light of working-class identity and the desire for stability during periods of economic upheaval. Or they can just think about how much ass Jack “Splat” Lambert used to kick.”
Features activity items and other projects, essays, an interview, a poster, and full-color illustrations.
With these temporary tattoos you aren’t just wearing some of the finest Steeler tattoos found in Pittsburgh tattoo parlors and at Steelers games, but you can also “wear” another person’s nipples, moles, and body hair if you choose.
NY Times Sports’ #1 Most Emailed Article for two days. “An exhibit that explores the culture of Steelers Nation and the personal relationship between the team and its fans.”
“Most of all, the exhibition, titled Keep It Slick, is hands-on and human-sized enough to encourage all of us to be Yes Men, which may be the biggest lesson this show has to offer: we can be agents of positive social change, and Keep It Slick is a beginners manual.”
“It’s a shrine to Steeler mania and a testament to the fans’ intensely personal relationship with the team”
In the Top News segment for two news cycles. “Whatever It Takes features some of the most dedicated and unique aspects of the Pittsburgh Steelers and their fans, the Steeler Nation”
“Art of the Steel: A New CMU Exhibit Celebrates Steelers Fandom”
You, too, can wear all the Super Bowl rings that the Pittsburgh Steelers have won, with these custom-made, handknit gloves.
The first major gallery exhibition to present sports fanaticism as a significant form of cultural production, bridging the assumed gap between sports and the arts.
This is a new map of the world representing Steeler Nation, where countries that don’t have a fan base for the Pittsburgh NFL team don’t exist.
“Keep It Slick features video of the group’s elaborate agitprop gags, manipulated newspaper headlines and fast-food logos, and interactive ‘conference rooms’ where visitors can read the script of a ‘real’ Yes Men hoax.”
“The Yes Men’s ability to seamlessly blend with and subvert corporate identities engages the public to envision a more just world of commercial and governmental responsibility… The logic behind ‘Keep It Slick’ runs contrary to most exhibitions. Instead of affirming the artists’ originality or craftsmanship, this show is intended to motivate ordinary citizens to themselves become Yes Men through DIY activism and infiltration.”
“The Yes Men’s canny mimicry of business culture is on display in their mock boardroom with running PowerPoint presentations, bad paneling, motivational posters and bottles of Bhopal water.”
The first major exhibition of the internationally renowned culture-jamming group. Dubbed “the most prescient show of the year” by Paper City and “a timely acknowledgment of the work of […] the great social satirists of our time” by Art Papers.
Photographs and new installation work examine how communities are changing in the shadow of corporate real estate.
Other exhibitions, events, residencies organized for Carnegie Mellon’s Miller Gallery, 2008 – 2014.
Astria Suparak 