installation shot, 2017, image via @juddlegum
Just when I thought Sforzianism was obsolete, and my ambivalence about designating politically charged stacks as works was abating, a cadre of Trump Organization staffers dressed the set of Donald’s press conference with six stacks of manila folders containing paper.
The folders were unlabeled; some, if not all, papers appeared to be blank; no reporters were permitted access to any of it. Trump described the tableful of paper in folders as a portion of the many, many documents he’d had to sign to create the trust that would hold his companies when he becomes president. His sons would manage the trust. That is about all. It is unprecedented, unaccountable, and almost certainly unconstitutional, and yet the existence of these stacks of unviewable, unknowable, possibly entirely blank paper furthers the likelihood that this trust fiction will proceed, with all the entirely foreseeable outcomes. This is an extraordinary effect for such an abject object as manila folders.
If this were a work, a Felix Gonzalez-Torres-style stack, I’d imagine it would be shown on a black-draped table. There’d be an ideal height, or number of paper and folders as seen here. But as the paper would be symbolically linked to Trump’s businesses and addressing the conflicts his businesses pose, I guess the supply could be infinite. Felix used the word endless, but I think that word is one of the reasons I’m not really sanguine about designating this right now.
UPDATE: Oh wow, more stacks. A stack of that Time magazine. Or, a stack and a bundle. This one falls somewhere between Felix and Robert Gober. via @mattmfm
Previously, mentioned: On Study for Untitled (Thick List)
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the making of, by greg allen
