Bruce High Quality Foundation (2004-) USA

The BHQF (Bruce High Quality Foundation) is an anonymous art collective founded in 2004 in Brooklyn, New York. The group is limited to eight members and membership is constantly rotating. The collective was founded at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York in the 1990s, and the name derives from a fictional character, who according to the group, was killed in the World Trade Center. The reason for their anonymity is that they oppose the hyped-up stardom surrounding today’s artists. They are also critical of art schools that do not provide students with the help and tools they need to handle the expectations with which they are confronted in the art world. The art produced by the BHQF revolves around issues concerning art schools, the art market, and contemporary art. Their works are usually communicative with elements of humor, where the theme is art, art history or contemporary events. In 2011 they went on tour to various art schools in the US to urge the students to define their own future and the knowledge they need to achieve it. During this tour they traveled in a limousine painted to resemble a school bus, an ironic gesture directed against an object with considerable symbolic value.