200.performance

$200.00 Performance

This Performance took place on July 14, 1998 At Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. The Skowhegan Art Program has an annual event in which the residents of the program are encouraged to present art objects to sell at auction in benefit of the party committee. Half of the proceeds goes to the committee as funds for all the party events that take place during the course of the program. The other half of the proceeds goes to the artists. All biddings start at a minimum of $1.00. I decided to present two $100.00 bills for auction. My pieces were the 9th items of the night. Taylor Spence was the auctioneer. People started to bid on the items and these went from $1.00 to $20.00 to $50.00 and so on until they reached $200.00. At this point Taylor asked if he could have $201.00. He got it and eventually the bills were bought by Sebastiaan Bremer for $205.00. During the bidding people kept asking if the bills were real (they were ), and they asked if they were signed by the artist ( they were not.) Because half the proceeds go to the artist, I was to lose $100.00 in this event. But the director of the program, Tom Finkelpearl, decided that too much money was made in the auction and that the party committee would never be able to spend all the money before the end of the summer; therefore, the artists received eighty percent of the proceeds as opposed to fifty percent. And so I lost $40.00 as opposed to $100.00. Two weeks later I got a check from the office for $164.00. In this performance I wanted to present objects which inherently denied artistic authorship, or at least denied the monetary value of the object itself even if it was claimed by an artist (in this case me) as a piece. I also wanted to push the participants into a reciprocal action -- in which the more investment they were willing to make on the items, the less valuable the objects got until these lost their monetary value. Some people in the audience did not realize until much later that the person that bought the piece had bought absolutely nothing.
eduardo@navasse.net

$200.00 Performance

This Performance took place on July 14, 1998 At Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

The Skowhegan Art Program has an annual event in which the residents of the program are encouraged to present art objects to sell at auction in benefit of the party committee. Half of the proceeds goes to the committee as funds for all the party events that take place during the course of the program. The other half of the proceeds goes to the artists. All biddings start at a minimum of $1.00.

I decided to present two $100.00 bills for auction. My pieces were the 9th items of the night. Taylor Spence was the auctioneer. People started to bid on the items and these went from $1.00 to $20.00 to $50.00 and so on until they reached $200.00. At this point Taylor asked if he could have $201.00. He got it and eventually the bills were bought by Sebastiaan Bremer for $205.00. During the bidding people kept asking if the bills were real (they were ), and they asked if they were signed by the artist ( they were not.)

Because half the proceeds go to the artist, I was to lose $100.00 in this event. But the director of the program, Tom Finkelpearl, decided that too much money was made in the auction and that the party committee would never be able to spend all the money before the end of the summer; therefore, the artists received eighty percent of the proceeds as opposed to fifty percent. And so I lost $40.00 as opposed to $100.00. Two weeks later I got a check from the office for $164.00.

In this performance I wanted to present objects which inherently denied artistic authorship, or at least denied the monetary value of the object itself even if it was claimed by an artist (in this case me) as a piece. I also wanted to push the participants into a reciprocal action -- in which the more investment they were willing to make on the items, the less valuable the objects got until these lost their monetary value. Some people in the audience did not realize until much later that the person that bought the piece had bought absolutely nothing.

eduardo@navasse.net