Sometimes an e-mail crosses your desk that stops you in your tracks. Usually, my eyes are scanning, scanning, filtering, and my fingers are pressing ‘delete’ very quickly, scrolling, moving to the end of the pile of new mail to get that feeling of satisfaction derived from believing that at the very least I’ve scanned everything, though I may not have actually read it. And then something stops you in your tracks. Usually, they are funny ideas that might just work.
The most recent one came from Neutral Ground (hi, Brenda!) a fantastic gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada:
Invitation to submit an artwork: Modernist Forgeries II
Dear Artist,
As you may have heard, we are soliciting artists to participate in Modernist Forgeries II, our 2007 50/50 fundraising show and sale. We would like to invite you to create a forgery of a Modernist work for this extravagant occasion.
In order to participate, please follow the following steps:
1. Select a Modernist artwork that you would like to copy. A work from the late 19th c. or 20th c. and which of course includes High Modernism or earlier historical trajectory. You need not limit your work to painting; you may contribute a sculpture, drawing, photograph, mixed media work, assemblage etc. that copies, in detail, the great work.[further details snipped]
I will just let you mull over the face-value insanity of asking people to forge certain masters. At first it seems pretty wild; upon reflection, you can understand and appreciate exactly what is going on.
Second example:
The “Phantom Ball” at Side Street Projects in California:
If you buy a “ticket” to the Phantom Ball, we’ll send you a party favor made for this infamous non-event: a signed, limited-edition print by a well-known contemporary artist. What does this year’s print look like? Well, that’s a secret until June 1st. Buy your “ticket” right now (sight un-seen) for only $100. Once we reveal the image on June 1st, the “ticket price” doubles to $200. As always, we’ll understand if you can’t make it. Nobody ever has. Nobody ever does. Not in 14 years. See how this works?
A ball where no one comes, and an invitation to submit forged work. Funny ideas that just might work – as fundraisers, not as serious events or exhibitions – right?