Institute For Unpopular Culture
In 1989 Ferguson founded the Institute for Unpopular Culture (IFUC) as a non-profit organization to support artists outside the mainstream art world. "It is our aim to subvert all commercial avenues of art exploitation," Ferguson said. "It's not that we dislike people who own art galleries, we just think there could be a viable alternative." IFUC's stated mission is to discover and mentor outsider artists and creative people by assisting with public relations, business, counseling, opportunities, access to equipment, and funding for their projects.
Ferguson founded The Punk Rock Orchestra, a 50-plus member collaboration which recasts punk songs in an orchestral format. The orchestra has been featured on NPR and CBS Radio's The Osgood File. The PRO was voted San Francisco's Best Local Band in 2005 by readers of the SF Weekly.
The Institute has supported and been associated with a number of artists, including Obie-award winning performance artist Holly Hughes and graffiti artist Barry McGee (a.k.a. "Twist"). Clinton Fein, founder of Annoy.com. Interns from the IFUC offered legal research in support of Fein's successful legal case against the U.S. government (ApolloMedia v. Reno) which challenged the constitutionality of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. IFUC has sponsored William Noguera, an artist who, since 1983 has been on death row at California's San Quentin State Prison and now creates photorealistic pointillist paintings with a rapidograph technical pen.
Read more about this topic: David Ferguson (impresario)
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