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How do we connect the dots between Wooster Enterprises and Andy Warhol Enterprises, or between Wooster and other "corporate art" ventures traditionally aligned with Pop Art-Claes Oldenburg's Store, Keith Haring's Pop Shop, or Murakami's Kaikai Kiki?

In a 1983 Interview, Davidovich made a statement about his television work that could easily be the caption for the photo of the Wooster booth at the 1977 National Stationery Show: "Instead of putting a urinal in a museum, here we are putting a museum in a urinal."[[superscript 12]] This invocation of Marcel Duchamp further frustrates our attempts to categorize the project. Perhaps we should stop trying and select all of the above. Conceptual and commercial, creative and corporate, art and design, Wooster was a mixed-message intervention in the public sphere, a deadpan prank with earnest undertones, and a logical extension of Fluxus. That tension between business and pleasure, real and fake, is the Wooster Enterprises mystique.

[[Footnotes]]
1 Wooster Enterprises was unaffiliated with experimental theater company the Wooster
2 Montross, Sarah. "Cartographic Communications: Latin American New Media Artists in New York City (1960s-1980s)," Forthcoming PhD Dissertation, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2012. Quote from Leandra Strobling, Artists Television Network Research and Development Final Report, Grant Number R70-34-174, The National Endowment for the Arts (1978), p. 2.
3 See Kellein, Thomas, George Maciunas: The Dram of Fluxus (Thames & Hudson, 2007); and Armstrong, Elizabeth, In the Spirit of Fluxus (Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1993).
4 See Alonso, Rodrigo, "Surfaces, Spaces and Electronic Asceticism: The Tape Projects," in the exhibition catalogue for Jaime Davidovich: Biting the Hand That Feeds You (Artium Museum of Contemporary Art, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, 2010).
5 See Churner, Leah, "Television Therapy: Jaime Davidovich and Manhattan Cable Access," Biting the Hand That Feeds You, Artium: and "Un-TV: Public Access Cable Television in Manhattan, an Oral History," Moving Image Source (movingimagesource.us), 2011.
6 Taubin, Amy, "From Fluxus to Media Art," essay for exhibition of the same name at Stendhal Gallery, 2008. Accessed at stendhalgallery.com.
7 Hendricks, Jon, The Fluxus Codex (Harry N. Abrams, 1988). Fluxus Year Boxes came in wooden boxes; the Fluxpacks came in mailing tubes. All the George Maciunas items in the Wooster Enterprises collection are remainders from Fluxpack 3 (1973-75).

8 Letter from David R. Collins, Manager, Product Development and Merchandising, Department of Publications, MoMA. Dated May 5, 1977, the letter is addressed to Davidovich: "We enjoyed seeing your designs for notepapers and cards, and want to express our interest in several items for production in the immediate future. We are ready to produce sets of notepaper with envelopes from your 'crumpled paper' design. As you now, we are having it costed out. . . . We have also expressed interest in your design for 'underlying messages' for 2 possible sets of notecards - one for the Christmas season, and one for general purposes. We are also interested in . . . further exploring with you your ideas for a package of postcards of your design and the 'hand stationery concept.'"
9 Hendricks, p. 349.
[[Superscript 10]] Alberro, Alexander, Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity (MIT Press, 2003), pp. 4-5.
11 Warhol, Andy. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (Harvest/HBJ, 1975), p. 92.
12 Torrent, Jodi, "Contra el gigante de màrmol: ATN (Artists' Television Network"), Video Actualidad 26 (Barcelona, September 1983).
[[/Footnotes]]

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