I.S. Consultant Dan Nelson

Consultant Dan Nelson (above, on assignment in Italy) has been with Imperial Services since 1998, when he founded the western Connecticut presence of the group. He brings two decades of experience in art and thirty years of service-based work. He offers services in the categories of Strategizing & Guidance, Self-Improvement, Oral Servicing, Love Life, Content Generation, and Heavy Lifting, among others.

Imperial Services Office

An Imperial Services office displaying a print of a Rorschach inkblot. Hermann Rorschach (1884 – 1922) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst whose education in art helped to spur the development of a set of inkblots that were used experimentally to measure various unconscious parts of the subject's personality. His method has come to be referred to as the Rorschach test, iterations of which have continued to be used over the years to help identify personality, psychotic, and neurological disorders. Rorschach continued to refine the test until his premature death at age 37.

Founder Eugene Guarnieri

Imperial Services was founded in 1956 in Chicago by Eugene Guarnieri (shown at right with an unidentified client), a semi-retired professor of psychology, amateur sculptor, and violist. As the child of a wealthy diplomat he traveled the world throughout his youth, living in Persia, Italy, Ethiopia, and Norway, eventually becoming fluent in five languages. After serving in in a secretive psy-ops division of the U.S. Army in World War II, Guarnieri taught at the University of Chicago, where he came into contact with an aesthetically rarefied world created by the educated and wealthy of the city. His social ties and savvy way with people eventually translated into informal consulting sessions held in upscale hotel bars, private clubs, museums, and homes.

Read a Poem to a Client Over the Phone

This is an example of one of the many services we can provide to clients of Imperial Services.

Menu of Services

Selected Menu of Services. Custom services are also available.

Imperial Services Logo and Tagline

Imperial Services logo and tagline, designed ca. 1977, designer uncredited

Make An Artist A Millionaire: 400 to 1: Sanford Weill

Phase 4 of "Make an Artist a Millionaire" is called "400 to 1." It entails writing a letter to each of the people on the Forbes 400 list to solicit a donation. The project is more about sussing out human nature and understanding how to get through to the kind of person who, on the surface, couldn't be more different from the average artist: the business person. The same challenge of asking for something in return for nothing that exists on the lower end of the scale of quantity--$1--is amplified many times in approaching millionaires and billionaires.

Make An Artist A Millionaire: 400 to 1: John Glen Sperling

Phase 4 of "Make an Artist a Millionaire" is called "400 to 1." It entails writing a letter to each of the people on the Forbes 400 list to solicit a donation. Rather than sending a form letter to each member of the Forbes 400, the intent is to research each person and craft a personalized plea.

Make An Artist A Millionaire: 400 to 1: Anne Cox Chambers

Phase 4 of "Make an Artist a Millionaire" is called "400 to 1." It entails writing a letter to each of the people on the Forbes 400 list to solicit a donation. What at first seemed simply like a euphemism for "your project will never succeed" grew into, if not a more effective approach to getting the million, at least a challenge. More interesting than asking people over and over for a dollar, which in the end possibly just reinforced the idea of the artist as an undeserving beggar, someone who steps out of line when they expect a reward for their gifts.

Your Name Here, Vol. 2

Screenshot of a Your Name Here submission page.

Send Into Orbit / Send Into Black Hole

A letter written to NASA requesting they send one cassette into orbit and launch one cassette into a black hole, and NASA's response requesting the project proposals be submitted according to standard procedures. Click "Download This" to read a selection of project letters.

Early Imperial Services Business Card

Business card. ca. 1957 showing the original logo that bears the Latin saying "Audentes Fortuna Iuvat", i.e. "Fortune favors the bold." Designer uncredited.

Make An Artist A Millionaire: 400 to 1: Kirk Kerkorian

Phase 4 of "Make an Artist a Millionaire" is called "400 to 1." It entails writing a letter to each of the people on the Forbes 400 list to solicit a donation. My stepmom, who has a lot of experience and success in university development, collaborated on this project. It was she, in fact, who planted the seed for "400 to 1". After listening to me describe MAAAM, she made the offhand comment "Honey, it would be easier for you to get one person to write you a check for a million dollars than to get a million people to each give you a dollar."

While my wife pursued an Art in Social Practice MFA students at PSU, I attended weekly visiting artist lectures, whose speakers leaned towards the social practice end of the scale and/or who spoke mostly about process and the mechanics of their work. While listening to these lectures, I filled notebooks with band names.

“Proust: Time Recovered” (work in progress)

Clearinghouse Publishers: “Instructions for Use” performance view

A participant carrying out the instruction “this page to be let fly”, a page from "Instructions For Use" (2010), issue #7 of Clearinghouse Publishers.

Clearinghouse Publishers: “Instructions for Use”

"Instructions For Use" (2010) was issue #7 of Clearinghouse Publishers, with accompanying letter. This issue consisted of 10-12 pages of ink on airmail paper, with a different instruction on each page.

“Make An Artist A Millionaire” – self-portrait with a negotiable instrument

$1 from one million people, people.

“Dodecadiscoteca” performance view

Performance view at The Lab, San Francisco, 2006.