I’m really looking forward to the process for this show, a first of this kind for me. My initial thought, when I was pondering what I might put into the show, was “I wonder if anyone will want this piece?”, thinking of myself as the last person left when teams are chosen in gym class. It’s interesting how something new produces fear, even with such a generous premise!
There’s so much to talk about in relation to alternate economies, the idea of producing work for a different context – it seems that these ideas and utopian impulses are very much in the air (from what I can tell from all those e-flux emails). There’s a new show opening soon about feeding people as art, and another one in a gas station at the edge of Chelsea which will still function as one during the week, art and all. And then I just received an email about “the artist as entrepreneur” with workshops on pop-up galleries and business investment.
Also am wondering if anyone has read The Gift, by Lewis Hyde, an amazing book I discovered last year.
Thank you, Karen, for your comment. As you wrote, I had been thinking about how the gift, in a sense, is not always affirmative. There might be instances in which a gift can carry fear, a sense of obligation and a number of mixed feelings and unexpected consequences. One of my favorite Latin American authors of all time, Julio Cortázar, has a creative short story on a gift – a watch in this case – that could well be extrapolated or generalized into other gifts as well. I remember reading it for the first time and being amused, but I’ve returned to it because the more I thought of it, the more I see its brilliance. It’s called: “Preámbulo a las instrucciones para dar cuerda al reloj” or “Preamble to the instructions on how to wind a watch.” Derrida also wrote a deconstructive view of the gift, focused on its very impossibility. For this show I was inspired more by the other ideas on the curatorial statement. I’m experimenting with taking abstract objects into a micro gift-economy and by establishing a matrix of relations I’m hoping to make visible the potential of the act of gifting as a catalyst for community in the artworld, while also being profoundly inspired by the many artist collectives sprouting in LA and by how some of the artists such as Deleget, Grabner, Hallard, and many others have been able to do just that, and successfully, on their own terms.
Mariangeles, Thanks for the thoughts on the idea of gift, and I do think this idea of creating community outside of the economic model is lovely. Would you post the Derrida info.here too? I’m interested in the “impossibility” idea – because I’m noticing how much is involved in what seems like a simple act.