Takeaway Art Layout

8/3/2019 Takeaway Art Layout

1/10

Takeaway art:

cultural trophies

curated by

Simon Pyle


2/10

People have been collecting souvenirs and using objects to represent experience for as

long as written history. Longer probably. (What came rst? Associations of a memory

with an object, or marks forming characters to capture the past?)

The Greek worktrop means the turn or change - the line on the horizon, the souring

of wine, or the moment of a battles decisive turn to the favor of the victor. The time

and location where the forward force ofan enemy phalanx dissipated and ran was

commemorated by the placement of a tropaion

This trophy took the form of a tree dressed

in the armor of a dead combatant. After

shields were strewn at its base, the structure

remained until the next battle.

In any case, the use of objects to represent

experience has existed longer than the

word souvenir has been English, which only

migrated from the French word meaning to

remember in 1775.

In recent years, the art object as item for

giveaway or as souvenir has proliferated. As

Relational Aesthetics encourages the creation

of art as a service, takeaway art provides notonly an experience of taking an object but also

a souvenir of the exchange. The act of taking

away the object sometimes is more important

than the object itself. This show presents

several works of takeaway art from the past

twenty years that exhibit fresh takes on the

concept.

The central challenge of such a show is that

while the work truly takes place rst in the gallery and then in the homes, ofces,

studios, and wastebaskets where takeaway art ends up, the gallery is the only side of the

work that most people see. A recent exhibition in Chicago, billed as the rst exhibition

of takeaway art, took a clever approach to this by showing individual items that had been

taken away and then lent by their collectors to the show. This exhibition will choose to

present the works as they were originally created with the intent of giving the viewers

an experience closer to the original intent of the artists.

A depiction o a tropaion rom rajans column.


3/10

It is impossible to begin any discussion of takeaway art without a nod to Felix Gonzalez-

Torres. His work in the late Eighties and early Nineties cast the mold for a number of

future artists both in concept and form. This exhibition includes perhaps his most famous

piece, Untitled (Portrait of Ross in LA) (1991). This installation consists of candies in colorful

cellophane wrapping piled on the oor of the gallery with an invitation to gallery-goers

to take a piece. Though the dimensions of the work vary as candy ends up in pockets

and mouths, the work begins with the ideal weight of 175 pounds, echoing the weight

of Gonzalez-Torres partner Ross before he began to succumb to AIDS. As the work

diminishes, it echoes Ross decline.

Flix Gonzlez-orres Untitled (Portrait o Ross in L.A.), 1991. Candies individually wrapped in multicoloredcellophane, endless supply. Overall dimensions vary with installation, ideal weight: 175 lb.


4/10

Two of Gonzalez-Torres poster pieces are included here as well: Untitled (Aparicion)

(1991), and Untitled (The End) (1990). These stacks of posters invite viewers to take

one (thus becoming not viewers but participants). Throughout the day, the height of

the stack will vary, but

the condition of the

piece is that the supplyof posters must be

unlimited. This is perhaps

a nod to immortality,

even with the ironic

title ofThe End, but

in the context of this

exhibition it is more

important in setting a

form for takeaway art

that will be copied and

reconsidered repeatedly

to the point of becoming

clich.

Two works are included

that use this form ininteresting ways. Jason

Lazarus Try Harder(2008)

and Jeremy Dellers Poster

Stack (2009). Try Harder

functions slightly outside

of the format set by

Gonzalez-Torres. Lazarus

presented in a gallery a

large (nine feet by twelve

feet) newsprint poster of

Otis Redding performing

with the exhortation

scribbled across to try

harder. He gave away

small prints of the poster

and arranged to have Felix Gonzalez-orres, Untitled (Te End), 1990.

Felix Gonzalez-orres, Untitled (Aparicion), 1991


5/10

medium prints given away for free

at record stores in New York. The

small giveaways function partially

as the artwork and partially as a

traditional souvenir: a convenient

reduced representation to be

brought home as a reminderof the original. The medium

takeaways are more similar to

the typical poster art giveaway

- a work of art completed by

the viewer. What makes both of

these forms stand out from other

similar work is what happens after

the posters make their way into

the world. Lazarus asks people

to hang the posters somewhere

that they can use additional

inspiration and then to send him

a photo of the poster in situ. The

poster on its own is only of slight

interest, but the collection of

photographs completes the work.

We usually only see the rst partof takeaway work in the form

of the distribution in the gallery.

However, the bulk of the life of

the work takes place outside of

the gallery where people place

the work in new contexts and

project their own associations

with the piece and the story of

the acquisition.


6/10

Above and acing page:ry Harder in siturom http://www.jasonlazarus.com/#/work:11:try-harder/media:406:submitted-jpgs:-v...


7/10

In addition to

staging The Battle of

Orgreave, for which he

won the Turner Prize,

Jeremy Deller is known

for musically inspired

poster giveaways. InPoster Stack, Deller

creates a self-aware

stack of takeaway

posters emblazoned

only with a scrawled

Please take One

(sic). In this way he

gives the viewers an

experience that is

less connected to free

art and more explicitly

about the act of taking

an object from a gallery. This brings the subversive nature of the takeaway art piece to

the fore; it is a thrill to not only touch a work of art but also take it home.

In a similar vein, Will St. Legers Art

Raid events provide the thrill oftaking work directly off the wall of the

gallery under frantic conditions. St.

Leger presents a gallery of work and

then at a unknown time, an alarm goes

off, signaling a free-for-all for viewers

to become sanctioned thieves and

tear work from the wall on their way

out of the gallery. The whole event

ends in thirty seconds of adrenaline

as people compete for art. In this way,

the experience and story of acquiring

the art becomes as much of the work

as the actual art object.

Jeremy Deller, Poster Stack, 2009Ofset Poster (edition o 2000)A2 size

Will St. LegerStill rom Art Raid 2007

http://youtu.be/A54tmzAQV7I


8/10

The Linz Hocker Stool (2009), designed by Thomas Feichtner and produced by Vitra,

creates a takeaway piece that is a twist on the idea of a site-specic work. While

all of the takeaway work is in a way site-specic in that the pieces likely end up in

homes loosely clustered around the distribution point, much of the other work in this

exhibition has been presented in more than one city. A Felix Gonzalez-Torres poster

stack in Rome is the

same as the posterstack in New York. This

grey functional stool

was given away only

once in Linz, Austria,

with the intention that

it would become part

of the fabric of the

city - in the words of

the designer, that it

would begin to appear

not only in kitchens

and sheds of Linz, but

also in ea markets

and other secondary

distribution sites in the

future. By giving away

something functional inaddition to aesthetic,

Feichtner can help

assure the persistence

of the objects. Objects

with a dened purpose

are also easier to value,

which helps side-step

a question inherent in

much takeaway art: if

an object is free and

made of relatively cheap

materials (such as

newsprint), what is its

value? Linz Hocker Stool, 2010Designed by Tomas Feichtner


9/10

Shilpa Gupta, the Indian artist, presents similarly functional yet highly ephemeral items

in Threat(2009). She tints bars of soap to resemble her skin, embosses them with the

word THREAT, and stacks them to be taken in galleries. Again, this work is only nished

by the recipient of the soap who transforms the fortied stack of soap bricks into the

intimate experience of washing the body with a representation of the body of another.

Her goal is not only to bring the viewer into the work, but also to bring the experienceof the work outside of the gallery context. In the gallery setting things are easier in

some respects--people know the kind of thing Im doingWhats much more interesting

is to take art out of the art world1

1 Sophia Powers, Te Slant on Shilpa Gupta 2010 http://www.artslant.com/ny/articles/show/19843

Shilpa GuptaTreat, 2009

Embossed Body Soap,each soap 6 x 2 x 1.5


10/10

Rivane Neuenschwander

piece I Wish Your Wish (2003)

also brings the work outside

of the gallery. Pilgrims have

been collecting souvenirs

for centuries - some of the

earliest mass-producedprints were sold to medieval

pilgrims as souvenirs.

Inspired by a tradition at a

church in Bahia, Brazil where

pilgrims write a wish on a

ribbon and then wear it until

it falls off, Neuenschwander

encourages viewers to write

a wish on paper, drop it

through a hole in the wall, and then take from the gallery wall an existing wish printed

on ribbon, tie it around the wrist, and wear it until it falls off. The submitted wish then

becomes a printed wish for a future show. Unlike other takeaway work that creates a

exchange (and thus a bond) between the artist and the recipient, this work creates a

chance for people to wear the wishes of fellow anonymous participants.

Rivane NeuenschwanderI Wish Your Wish (detail), 2003

Rivane NeuenschwanderI Wish Your Wish, 2003

Takeaway Art Layout

Documents

Transcript of Takeaway Art Layout