Marco Rosichelli

Halloween is canceled, probably. Few traditions seem to break as many momentary provisional taboos as a youth-led door-to-door food collection. The plethora of devastating news that this “year of hindsight” (2020) has brought us, foreshadows the ghost of Halloween’s future, a minor but meaningful void to many, and one that may reveal another looming monster… As Halloween’s popularity has roared over the past decade, its success has become an indicator of a robust economy; its quietus may reveal more than we are prepared to accept. To fortify ourselves against a frightening future, Not a Halloween Superstore seeks to remedy the conditions that haunt us.

In the years following the 2008 recession, the pop-up business model boomed. Fresh, temporary signage signaled to the public the hope and potential of new aspirational vendors, but the promise lay within the recent graves of former businesses. In response to this phenomena, artist collaborative Llaboratory Co, Ryan Peter Miller and Marco Rosichelli introduced Halloween Superstore, a satirical pop-up intervention. Their playful, theatrical mediation confronted the necessary persistence of retail failure to stimulate an economy of the ever-immanent celebration (As opposed to art, which is an immanent economy of failed retail necessities stimulated by persistent celebration). The Halloween Superstore model obscured the lines of these two systems by swapping signage, transforming surviving permanent galleries into off-season holiday stores through the installation of a simple vinyl banner. The effect drew new, unassuming clientele into previously unexplored art spaces and made steadfast supporters of the arts consider their industry with a renewed perspective. While the initial project was envisioned as a simple substituted signifier, multiple executions of Halloween Superstore expanded the initiative into other realms, including an actual retail store and a haunted box truck, engaging more deeply with an enthusiastic audience. The project thrived in an environment that permitted typical social dynamics, unfortunately the exigencies of this current moment demand additional consideration.

Not a Halloween Superstore beats the deadpan horseplay of its previous iteration, reanimating the corpse with new vitality. Under our extant global conditions, businesses are scrambling to innovate, transition and transform; seeking ways to persist through understanding, acceptance, and improvement. There is a breath of hope to be expressed. Not a Halloween Superstore is a piece of social practice intervention in the form of social abstention, a simple piece of signage serving as an indicator of optimism. Wherein Halloween Superstore addressed the trend of economic transition, this project is a promise of perseverance. In hosting/presenting this banner, businesses communicate to their public that they have not shuttered, they will return, they are Not a Halloween Superstore. Not a Halloween Superstore is a sign of the times, a tricky reminder to treat one another with optimism and generosity. -Llaboratory Co.

Llaboratory Co commemorates your future nostalgia of HCL's 10th anniversary with Doodle Booth, a provisional image capturing station featuring impromptu renderings of you, by Marco Rosichelli and Ryan Peter Miller. Finally answering Brad Pitt's infamous query, "Whats in the box?", Llaboratory Co reveals, “We are!”

As participants in the Chicago based High Concept Labs fundraising gala, Llaboratory Co set out to re-make a series of famous sculptures with the direct funding of Gala visitors. Visitors purchased art supplies and materials from the bric-a-brac museum store, which were then used by the artists to hastily re-create several famous artworks including works by Bruce Nauman, Tom Friedman, and Marcel Duchamp to name a few. It was a hectic race against the clock to complete the challenge in the 3 hours allotted.

The title, Re-Made in China, references the multiplicity of assorted assembly line, “Made in China,” commercial products. Post-consumer items Rosichelli sourced in thrift shops in his home town of Kansas City and carried through customs back to their country of origin. These objects were then recreated by ceramic artisans on site at The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China during a month-long ceramic residency. Taking the form of both documentation and artwork, Rosichelli is depicted as a ceramic artist surrounded by his re-made creations. Re-Made in China questions the authenticity of objects, the handmade object, ownership and authorship. Rosichelli lets you in on the joke with a nod to the ubiquitous “Made in China" sticker. 

Taking the transparent form of a pyramid scheme, the homophonic PyramidsTheme exhibit invites viewers to invest in a regenerative drawing project allowing participants to buy and/or create original works of art to be resold to friends and family. This proprietary drawing system coupled with exclusive materials can transform the most inept makers into prosperous artists and dealers. This patented system is promoted through professional artist testimonials, which recognize their achieved success and notoriety through their dedicated participation. PyramidsTheme transforms the audience into accomplished craftsmen, through digital and live audio/visual presentations. 

An ongoing series of works started as digital compositions using found imagery that were then re-created as a series of sculptures intended to help understand trends and tropes in the contemporary art world.

Started as a site specific painting commission (and work of institutional critique), this painting was then purchased by the University of Central Missouri to commemorate the loss of the UCM President's on-campus housing. This painting currently resides in the UCM Library.

An on-going series of staged photographs that simulate the documentation and aesthetic of Socially Engaged Art Practice.

This tongue-n-cheek artwork uses projected light to conflate additive and subtractive color theories.

A site-specific curatorial artwork created by mining traditions in place at the Vermont Studio Center. 

In an attempt to reconcile my conceptual practice to a steady stream of engaged and curious arts practitioners, I turned my private work space public for the duration of my residency at the Vermont Studio Center.

The Halloween Superstore Experience is an immersive performance installation that associates the pop-up parallels of annual holiday storefronts with impromptu gallery spaces. Developing out of the post-economic downturn and DIY culture, the seasonal superstore resides in a unique niche in the commercial market. These shops set up in vacated and distressed properties, wherein the purveyors of holiday bric-a-brac maintain a symbiotic relationship between the lessor and public, providing rental income in otherwise vacant retail storefronts. To function, the superstore requires “dead” businesses, feeding off the loss of commerce to make its sales model successful. The artists postulates that this model exists in one additional venue, pop-up artist spaces.

“Welcome to The Halloween Superstore Experience, please be sure to purchase everything you need for your Halloween experience as we will be closing our store soon, indefinitely, and recursively.”

The “seasonal superstore” resides in a unique niche in our capitalistic system. Setting up in vacated and distressed properties, this purveyor of holiday bric-a-brac maintains a symbiotic relationship between landlord and public, providing rental income in otherwise vacant retail storefronts. To function, the superstore needs a “dead” business in order to feed off the loss of commerce to make its sales model successful.

We postulate that this model exists in one additional venue. With the drop in art sales in the recent economic downturn, the closure of commercial galleries stimulated incubator programs, public art organizations, and entrepreneurial co-ops to adopt the superstore model with temporary pop-up galleries intended to stimulate commerce and to increase foot traffic in commercial corridors.

Halloween Superstore blurs these lines to critique the underlying relationships and arts role and place in community and commerce. 

As a “thought experiment” to see how many art openings I could procure during a single month, I worked alongside Boulevard Brewing Company to create ConceptuAle (a portmanteau of my Conceptual art practice and their Pale Ale). The ConceptuAle was placed at openings during the 2016 Kansas City NCECA (National Council for Education of the Ceramic Arts) Conference at 14 local galleries and museums.

Abstract: Kansas City’s consummate craft beer, ConceptuAle, is a thought above Boulevard's Classic Pale Ale. Framed in the tradition of 20th century conceptual art and appropriation, this bright beverage is ideal for gallery hopping patrons.

Open for Business examines notions of what is and is not wanted (value), and how geography and cultural can influence value. What are the differences between the clothes purchased at second hand venue and the clothes that exist in the museum?  Tagged and editioned clothing continues to function as originally designed (albeit now with the potential for shift in identity due to the association with the exhibition), the clothes at the museum function differently, and now act as individual and collective art objects.

Created to elevate the status of any fine art object, this Pink Pedestal created out of a traditional building material turned fine art material replete in millennial pink is ready to ship in its hand made foam crate ready for both display, and critique.

Modled, 3D Printed, and cast in gold, these "sold" indicators function as a dubious indicator of value due to their inherent materials. Sold (NFS) critically examines wealth, value and arts place in the gallery and the digital realm.

Submitted to an museum open call to "bring in any bike parts" for a community based art event, this bike functions as a mini gallery attack providing prestigious lines on the CV of 14 artists.

A short ride indeed, the trip from one gallery wall to the other ends abrubtly... and with a bang.

Various artworks from past years deemed important in regards to craft or concept development.