Wooloo: Avante Garde Dating

What happens when you let artists organize? If Wooloo "” an artist-run organization based in Berlin and devoted to creating opportunities for emerging artists "” is any kid of precedent, you get a lot of the best kind of wackiness.

Wooloo has done lots of insanely great work, but the project that has us really interested is called, wouldn’t you know it?, Avant-Garde Dating. For this project, Wooloo is looking for artist-applicants among its online membership (which is free) to apply for a “partner.” The applicant has to “explain how this new relationship will explore the conventions of monogamous love, challenge the idea of artistic collaboration and/or explore one of the other numerous stereotypes of human pairing.” All applicants will receive a match, but only three couples will be flown to Berlin to be “exhibited.” Seriously. If chosen, Wooloo is going to put you and your avant-garde significant other in an exhibition space, have you live together for four days, and see what happens (with everyone else watching as well). Never mind that there’s an episode of the Twilight Zone something like this, what’s great is that the project takes the artistic spirit to places it doesn’t normally go. Not only will the individuals in the exhibition become objectified, so will their “relationship,” an arrangement that calls into question all sorts of assumptions we have about the human mating ritual. Wooloo is accepting applications until July 20, so get those word processors going!