Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Artist's Reception



I was invited to attend an artist's reception in November. This was my RSVP to the woman in charge of the event:


ME: I plan to attend the reception. I have another question. I would like to do a performance piece in which I hold a Garbage Sale--in which I sell garbage..... either at this reception or is there some other venue I could do this at?


HER:  Glad you will attend, but this is not the event for your sale.




She wrote more than this--some half hearted suggestions for other places to contact, but I just thought this was funny.  

6 comments:

kdj said...

I guess she missed the part where you said "performance piece," huh? Perhaps she misheard and thought you said you wanted to hold a garage sale.

kdj said...

I just went to your IUOMA page and I see that DVS has already made the garage sale suggestion. And I thought I was so cute. Curses. Foiled again.

Unknown said...

I did my found object creation exhibit here and other shows with her, so she knows my pieces are trashpo. sp I think she got what I was saying she just was snubbing me. She suggested I contact some local groups dealing with recycling etc. but honestly the point really isn't about recycling. It is meant to be absurd. I'm still going to start collecting stuff to have this sale. I'll take a video and post it at IOUMA where I know it will be appreciated!

De Villo Sloan said...

The written exchange is a D-Klassic. I hope you document this somewhere. And don't let it get you down.

You know I'm always reading about Fluxus. I have one book that has a lot of correspondence like this - artists sending all sorts of proposals for performances. For one instance, GM sent a proposal to the old Soviet/communist government requesting to do performances in Russia. The "official" responses are hysterical.

But do you see why Ben Vautier was driven to issue that matchbox: "Burn all museums, art galleries..." The official culture can get to you if you don't keep a sense of humor.

This only adds to the DK legend.

- DKULTNY

Unknown said...

I absolutely love this idea of the art being the correspondence. What is the book you are talking about? I think a reading list from you on all things fluxus would be very valuable

De Villo Sloan said...

DK, I don't have the title on hand but will get it for you. The book has documentation of the first "Flux Mass" performance, which ties in with the D-Konfessional - a piece I think deserves a serious performance somewhere.

One of the letters proposes putting a giant pile of dirt in front of a museum or something like that and the letters go back and forth, yeah I'll find it for you.

Congrats on D-KULT Germany. It takes a lot of pressure off Erni.

- DKULTNY