I’ve had the tabs open, and I still lost track of the tenth anniversary of Untitled (Andiron Attributed To Paul Revere Jr.), the first work to be on view at the Metropolitan Museum. [There was an earlier performance that began as a tweet in 2014—and is ongoing, block a Koch today!]
Untitled (Andiron…) was an early part of a series of experiments with the concepts of appropriation, readymades, and the power (or not) of authorship: they’re declared works of art where I didn’t own or control the physical object or environment.
It began with an idea of constraining or limiting police use of anti-demonstration equipment through litigation of VARA. That was inspired in part by a comment Olafur Eliasson made about pushing art beyond the boundaries of the art world. It immediately did not work, as a first conversation with an actual lawyer and a review of the specific language of the statute revealed. But it did spark questions about what constraints arose from requiring ownership as a criterion of art, and what could it look like otherwise?
It also put forth the possibility of changing someone’s mental state before—and while—they visited a museum and experienced art. I’d stumbled across the archival photo of Untitled (Andiron…) online, and had no idea what the actual object looked like, or where it was. Going to a museum with the expectation or the search for such an object is different than going to see the Vermeers. And the ostensible narrative of what seemed like a doubly abject object for an august museum—a lone andiron that would seemingly never resolve its attribution—expanded the questions to the whole museum apparatus itself.
Untitled (Andiron…)‘s most immediate success [and it’s unanticipated, egregious failure] came from social media, where some very thoughtful and generous people took up the andiron challenge, and together we looked at what it meant to share a social media-ted art encounter. [The failure happened more quickly, when I tried to figure out what kind of artistic discourse might work on Twitter by using the location feature to ask strangers who seemed to be visiting the Met to look for the andiron. Art or not, it was absolutely NOT a kind of engagement most people wanted on Twitter, and a couple of folks got really angry at what felt to them like creeper behavior. Obviously, I immediately stopped and apologized, ofc, but ten years on, I still feel bad and dumb about it.]
Ultimately, this approach to artmaking was also driven by the desire to not accumulate stuff. I’d been profoundly influenced by a talk R.H. Quaytman gave about having to deal with all the art left by her painter father. Why should my kids have to figure out what do to with Joan Collins’ pomade-stained headboard just because I declared it an artwork? They should not.
Ten years on, the headboard is currently whereabouts unknown, but Untitled (Andiron…) is, happily, still at the Met. I saw it on my last visit.
Previously:
Untitled (Andiron Attributed To Paul Revere Jr.), 2014 2015
Protestors’ Folding Item, 2014
Untitled (Koch Block), 2014 —
Untitled (Joan Collins Toile de Jouy), 2015