Jeff Howe coined the term 'crowdsourcing' to refer to 'tapping the latent talent of the crowd,' an act that is not exactly standard-issue collaboration, nor is it blatant exploitation. Curator Andrea Grover's forthcoming exhibition, Phantom Captain: Art and Crowdsourcing, seeks to present the state of crowdsourcing as it exists on the radar of the art world and in art production. If this makes you think of Spencer Tunick's photographs of nudes-en-masse, you're missing the point. Including such works as Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher's wonderful website, LearningToLoveYouMore.com, Grover's exhibition--opening Wednesday, October 18 at New York's Apex Art--presents work as varied as an update of the 1977 MoMA Artist's Cookbook, novelist Davy Rothbart's voyeuristic publication Found, a collaborative web-based sketch book, and thousands of poorly-drawn sheep. Best exemplified by last week's 1.6 billion-dollar deal between YouTube and Google, the relationship between individual entities (companies or artists) and crowds is a tricky one, as compensation (cash, exhibition opportunities, publishing deals, etc) is still available only to a few at the top. Phantom Captain opens new doors. - Sara Greenberger Rafferty
