What We Want Is Free: A Must Read for Artists
Advice for Artists and Creatives: Bringing Your Audience Into the Fold
Recently, a friend loaned me a copy of What We Want Is Free: Generosity and Exchange in Recent Art, a book of essays about exchange and gift-giving in contemporary art. It contains essays by a range of contributors, including theorists, critics, and artists. The projects cited throughout the book are designed to create a relationship between artist and audience through acts of generosity. For example, Ben Kinmont used an exhibition at White Columns Gallery to distribute invitations to a free waffle breakfast at his home.
At the root of each project, the artist has a specific audience that they want to engage. By targeting a particular group, the artists in What We Want Is Free are tying their work to a time and place. They can consider the idiosyncrasies of their audience: what language (visual/verbal/etc) do they use? Where do they congregate? How can they participate? And so on.
Most of the projects would fall under public art or relational aesthetics, but I think this book is valuable for gallery artists as well. In the example above, Kinmont can assume that most people who will attend the White Columns exhibition are art-savvy and probably also accustomed to attending a traditional gallery show. Through "Waffles for an opening," Kinmont asks this audience to consider that the art isn't in the gallery. It's somewhere else, somewhere private. They have to trust in the act of entering a stranger's house, in order for the art to actually occur.
In one of the first essays, Ted Purves (the volume's editor) brings out another gem of wisdom that applies to creative thinkers across the board. He defines cultural production as an act of waste and excess. This may sound like a cynical interpretation of high culture targeted toward the wealthy, but Purves challenges the reader to broadly look at what an excess can be.
Many of the projects discussed in the book stem from an abundance of time and/or private ownership. Rirkrit Tiravanija's "Free" (1991), is a solid example of both. For this project, the artist turned 303 Gallery's former SoHo space into a restaurant that served free Thai curry. The gallery space becomes more public, not only by enticing a wider audience but also a wider range of interactions. It's a space to hang out, to eat in, to meet other people, to engage the artist, etc. In other words, the work becomes about spending time.
If you are an artist, read this book. No matter how you define and structure your practice, the essays within What We Want Is Free will lead you to consider important questions about how you work and what kind of life a project can lead.
What We Want Is Free: Generosity and Exchange in Recent Art (Suny Series in Postmodern Culture) available at Powell's Books.
