Insider Art is an ongoing collaborative series by childhood friends Andrew Dorkin and Takashi Shallow. Fusing our respective backgrounds in literary theory and art, we’ve explored topics from the aesthetics of the shitpost to the seriousness of wine-and-paint. What began as two undergrads drafting a naive manifesto continues to provide a space for scrutinizing the possibility of becoming insiders.

Volume 4: artcasserole.com (since 2022)
Big art, bigger value: https://artcasserole.wordpress.com/

Volume 3: Insider Art (2019)
We consider our third collaboration to be the “title track”. The Insider Art exhibit featured artworks created by the Arts Club of Chicago staff and their family members alongside permanent collection pieces. We displayed these works with little distinction in order to demystify the value systems of art institutions. 

Read our full analysis and view documentation of the project in association with Shallow’s fellowship at the Club here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1L717eXk5hcVoaesJ8Jo2cjYS-K1LZwG2?usp=sharing

Volume 2: Weird Facebook (2017 – 2018)
An attempt to make sense of a loosely organized Facebook subculture composed of thousands of arty strangers resulted in two papers. The first proposes a new art platform in the subversive use of mainstream social media, and the second identifies “weird” humor as an aesthetic category specific to digital mediation. 

Part 1 – Shallow’s final paper for Matthew Jesse Jackson’s graduate course, 21st Century Art: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LSut6YBSbsu4FGjvXmzI_iudXwyFbHWD/view?usp=sharing

Part 2 – Dorkin’s presentation at the American Humor Studies Association Conference: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pExpQfFFz8DlfxwUaxPIbaDXXSlZ3fDQ/view?usp=sharing 

Volume 1: TEST (2011)
Our first collaboration was a quiz that assessed whether you were in and made you feel like you were out.

Contact us at dorkin.andrew@gmail.com