DIY Art Collecting
Since last spring I’ve been developing a curatorial/collecting practice to develop a ‘Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Art Collection.’ I’ve always wanted to collect and live with really great art, but I could never afford to purchase the pieces I really want. Much of the artwork I’m drawn to (and would collect) is rooted in the legacies of conceptual or minimal art, often minimizing the artist’s hand in the production process. Rather than accepting my fate of never being able to buy these works, I decided to make replicas of the artwork I loved and wanted to live with. (While these replicas would be carefully made to be as close to the original artwork as possible, the objects’ existence would be somewhere between a poster of the object and the real thing, and that’s ok with me). In doing so, I decided to develop a collection that was defined by a different set of rules and different means of acquisition – the criteria for being included in my collection are: 1) I have to love the artwork and want to experience living with it. 2) I have to possess or learn the skills to re-make it. 3) I have to be able to afford the materials to make it. 4) I must never sell or trade artwork from my collection (though I can loan it or share it in various ways). Once I established these limitations, I’ve focused on the curatorial process, researching and finding new artists and developing a database of artwork that I would like to add to the collection sometime in the future. This past year has largely been consumed by traveling to shows, reading artist monographs, going through gallery websites and following links and rabbit holes online.
I’m also interested in the idea that anyone could potentially have the same collection as me; I’m exploring the possibility of making how-to videos on YouTube or how-to guides (text) on mainstream D.I.Y. sites like instructables.com. When someone searches Google images for one of these artworks or artists they might come across a picture of one of my replicas, and after clicking on it they will be brought to a how-to guide rather than to a gallery’s website. In intervening in the traditional mode of experiencing art online, I hope viewers can reconsider their relationship to the artwork, consider issues related to ownership, DIY culture, and the politics of art collecting.
Finally, I’m interested in exploring my domestic space as a site for experiencing contemporary art. How can I treat my apartment like an installation? How can I create unique moments of encounter? Who is my audience, how is their experience different? Also, when artwork is displayed in the home, an information label rarely accompanies it. By refusing to place this information on the wall, I want viewers (and myself) to consider the object for what it is physically in space, and if they want additional information I’d be glad to engage in a conversation.
Broc Blegen Collection To-Do List (these are a few of the other pieces I love and will be working on in the future, as time and finances permit. The list is always changing according to my interests and exposure to new artists and artworks): Agnes Thurnauer, Portrait Grandeur Nature, 2007 (t-shirt button version) Allora & Calzadilla, Growth, 2006 Angus Fairhurst, A Magazine with the body and text removed, 2004 Bjorn Braun – Untitled, 2009 (9 nests made by zebra finches) Bruce Nauman – Run from Fear, Fun from Rear, 1972 Ceal Floyer, Ladies, 2004 Ceal Floyer, Monochrome Till Receipt (white), 1999 Ceal Floyer, Secret, 2009 Claire Fontaine, Foreigners Everywhere (Arabic), 2005 Claire Fontaine, La société du spectacle brickbat, 2006 Claire Fontaine, The True Artist, 2004 David Adamo – Untitled (axe), 2010 David Adamo – Untitled (bow), 2010 David Adamo – Untitled (cane), 2010 Fischli/Weiss, The Three Sisters, 1984 Gabriel Kuri, Untitled (Economic Diary), 2004 Gardar Eide Einarsson, Liberty or Death, (2006) Giuseppe Penone, Albero de 2,30 metri (2.3 meter tree), 1976 Glenn Ligon – Impediment, 2006 Guiseppe Penone, Le foreste dei tavoli, 1969 Joe Scanlan, DIY, 2002 Joe Scanlan, Nesting Bookcase, 1989-Present Joe Scanlan, Portable Utopias, 2005 Joe Scanlan. Blizzard Ball Sale, 2009 Jonathan Monk, As Yet Untitled, 2001 Jonathan Monk, Black Eyes, 2003 Jonathan Monk, Everything in the world that has ever been seen, 2005 Klara Liden, Untitled, 2010 (from the series “Poster Paintings”) Kris Martin, Festum, 2007 Kris Martin, Mr., 2007 Kris Martin, The End, 2010 Kris Martin, The Thinker, 2006/2010 Michael Hakimi, Noch so ein Sieg, und wir haben verloren (Another such victory and we are lost), 2010 Michael Queenland, Untitled (Black Balloon Rock), 2005 Mircea Cantor, Talking Mirror, 2007 Mona Hatoum, A Bigger Splash, 2009 Monica Bonvicini, Leather Tools, 2009 Monica Bonvicini, What Does Your Wife/Girlfriend Think of Your Rough and Dry Hands?, 1999-now Mungo Thomson, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (12-Step), 1999 Nina Katchadourian, Untitled (Salt and Pepper Shakers), 2007 Olivier Babin, After but before (3 janvier 1966), 2008 Peter Coffin, Untitled (Surrealist Frame), 2007. Gilded frame, 34 x 36 Rashid Johnson, White People Love Me, 2006 Robert Gober, Untitled Candle, 1991 Sarah Lucas, Get a hold of this, 1994 Sarah Lucas, Nature’s Broom, 2002 Seth Price, Untitled, 2008 (“silhouette” series) Shannon Ebner, Not Equal, 2009 Stefan Brüggemann, Conceptual Decoration, 2008 Stefan Brüggemann, Reversed Mirror, 2008 Wilfredo Prieto, One Million Dollars, 2002 William Pope L, The Polis or the Garden or Human Nature in Action, 1998 Yoko Ono, Play it by Trust, 1966-1998
(text from Indica Gallery)
PLAY IT BY TRUST aka WHITE CHESS SET (1966) by Yoko Ono Indica Gallery 1966
PLAY IT BY TRUST aka WHITE CHESS SET (1966) Play it for as long as you can remember who is your opponent and who is your own self. Yoko Ono
Play It By Trust presents an all-white chessboard with all-white pieces, and alludes to the ideal of chess championed by Marcel Duchamp as “the landscape of the soul.” Ono’s game demands the ultimate abstraction by leaving all but the first few moves to be played entirely in the mind. With minimal and conceptual means so typical of her art, she reduces the game to its fundamental structure-an opposition defined by black versus white-to provoke a sage contemplation: How to proceed when the opponent is indistinguishable from oneself?
Yoko Ono: When I created Play It By Trust I wasn’t thinking about Duchamp at all. Many artists have worked with chess, but they usually worked with the decorative aspect of the chess pieces. I wanted to create a new chess game, making a fundamental rather than decorative change. The white chess set is a sort of life situation. Life is not all black and white, you don’t know what is yours and what is theirs. You have to convince people what is yours. In the chess situation it is simple if you are black then black is yours. But this is like a life situation, where you have to play it by convincing each other.
People think that I’m doing something shocking and ask me if I’m trying to shock people. The most shocking thing to me is that people have war, fight with each other and moreover take it for granted. The kind of thing I’m doing is almost too simple. I’m not interested in being unique or different. Everyone is different. No two persons have the same mouth shape for example, and so without making any effort we’re all different. The problem is not how to become different or unique, but how to share an experience, how to be the same almost, how to communicate.
The concept is my work. In the art world, work is shown in a museum and a lot of people or a few people will see it, then if it’s bought by someone, that’s the end of it, or it comes back every once in a while. So I like the idea that Play It By Trust is repeated in different places, because the environment makes a big difference to the piece. Again, it’s the concept that is the work.
DIY Art Collecting
Since last spring I’ve been developing a curatorial/collecting practice to develop a ‘Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Art Collection.’ I’ve always wanted to collect and live with really great art, but I could never afford to purchase the pieces I really want. Much of the artwork I’m drawn to (and would collect) is rooted in the legacies of conceptual or minimal art, often minimizing the artist’s hand in the production process. Rather than accepting my fate of never being able to buy these works, I decided to make replicas of the artwork I loved and wanted to live with. (While these replicas would be carefully made to be as close to the original artwork as possible, the objects’ existence would be somewhere between a poster of the object and the real thing, and that’s ok with me). In doing so, I decided to develop a collection that was defined by a different set of rules and different means of acquisition – the criteria for being included in my collection are: 1) I have to love the artwork and want to experience living with it. 2) I have to possess or learn the skills to re-make it. 3) I have to be able to afford the materials to make it. 4) I must never sell or trade artwork from my collection (though I can loan it or share it in various ways). Once I established these limitations, I’ve focused on the curatorial process, researching and finding new artists and developing a database of artwork that I would like to add to the collection sometime in the future. This past year has largely been consumed by traveling to shows, reading artist monographs, going through gallery websites and following links and rabbit holes online.
I’m also interested in the idea that anyone could potentially have the same collection as me; I’m exploring the possibility of making how-to videos on YouTube or how-to guides (text) on mainstream D.I.Y. sites like instructables.com. When someone searches Google images for one of these artworks or artists they might come across a picture of one of my replicas, and after clicking on it they will be brought to a how-to guide rather than to a gallery’s website. In intervening in the traditional mode of experiencing art online, I hope viewers can reconsider their relationship to the artwork, consider issues related to ownership, DIY culture, and the politics of art collecting.
Finally, I’m interested in exploring my domestic space as a site for experiencing contemporary art. How can I treat my apartment like an installation? How can I create unique moments of encounter? Who is my audience, how is their experience different? Also, when artwork is displayed in the home, an information label rarely accompanies it. By refusing to place this information on the wall, I want viewers (and myself) to consider the object for what it is physically in space, and if they want additional information I’d be glad to engage in a conversation.
Broc Blegen Collection To-Do List (these are a few of the other pieces I love and will be working on in the future, as time and finances permit. The list is always changing according to my interests and exposure to new artists and artworks): Agnes Thurnauer, Portrait Grandeur Nature, 2007 (t-shirt button version) Allora & Calzadilla, Growth, 2006 Angus Fairhurst, A Magazine with the body and text removed, 2004 Bjorn Braun – Untitled, 2009 (9 nests made by zebra finches) Bruce Nauman – Run from Fear, Fun from Rear, 1972 Ceal Floyer, Ladies, 2004 Ceal Floyer, Monochrome Till Receipt (white), 1999 Ceal Floyer, Secret, 2009 Claire Fontaine, Foreigners Everywhere (Arabic), 2005 Claire Fontaine, La société du spectacle brickbat, 2006 Claire Fontaine, The True Artist, 2004 David Adamo – Untitled (axe), 2010 David Adamo – Untitled (bow), 2010 David Adamo – Untitled (cane), 2010 Fischli/Weiss, The Three Sisters, 1984 Gabriel Kuri, Untitled (Economic Diary), 2004 Gardar Eide Einarsson, Liberty or Death, (2006) Giuseppe Penone, Albero de 2,30 metri (2.3 meter tree), 1976 Glenn Ligon – Impediment, 2006 Guiseppe Penone, Le foreste dei tavoli, 1969 Joe Scanlan, DIY, 2002 Joe Scanlan, Nesting Bookcase, 1989-Present Joe Scanlan, Portable Utopias, 2005 Joe Scanlan. Blizzard Ball Sale, 2009 Jonathan Monk, As Yet Untitled, 2001 Jonathan Monk, Black Eyes, 2003 Jonathan Monk, Everything in the world that has ever been seen, 2005 Klara Liden, Untitled, 2010 (from the series “Poster Paintings”) Kris Martin, Festum, 2007 Kris Martin, Mr., 2007 Kris Martin, The End, 2010 Kris Martin, The Thinker, 2006/2010 Michael Hakimi, Noch so ein Sieg, und wir haben verloren (Another such victory and we are lost), 2010 Michael Queenland, Untitled (Black Balloon Rock), 2005 Mircea Cantor, Talking Mirror, 2007 Mona Hatoum, A Bigger Splash, 2009 Monica Bonvicini, Leather Tools, 2009 Monica Bonvicini, What Does Your Wife/Girlfriend Think of Your Rough and Dry Hands?, 1999-now Mungo Thomson, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (12-Step), 1999 Nina Katchadourian, Untitled (Salt and Pepper Shakers), 2007 Olivier Babin, After but before (3 janvier 1966), 2008 Peter Coffin, Untitled (Surrealist Frame), 2007. Gilded frame, 34 x 36 Rashid Johnson, White People Love Me, 2006 Robert Gober, Untitled Candle, 1991 Sarah Lucas, Get a hold of this, 1994 Sarah Lucas, Nature’s Broom, 2002 Seth Price, Untitled, 2008 (“silhouette” series) Shannon Ebner, Not Equal, 2009 Stefan Brüggemann, Conceptual Decoration, 2008 Stefan Brüggemann, Reversed Mirror, 2008 Wilfredo Prieto, One Million Dollars, 2002 William Pope L, The Polis or the Garden or Human Nature in Action, 1998 Yoko Ono, Play it by Trust, 1966-1998
(text from Indica Gallery)
PLAY IT BY TRUST aka WHITE CHESS SET (1966) by Yoko Ono Indica Gallery 1966
PLAY IT BY TRUST aka WHITE CHESS SET (1966) Play it for as long as you can remember who is your opponent and who is your own self. Yoko Ono
Play It By Trust presents an all-white chessboard with all-white pieces, and alludes to the ideal of chess championed by Marcel Duchamp as “the landscape of the soul.” Ono’s game demands the ultimate abstraction by leaving all but the first few moves to be played entirely in the mind. With minimal and conceptual means so typical of her art, she reduces the game to its fundamental structure-an opposition defined by black versus white-to provoke a sage contemplation: How to proceed when the opponent is indistinguishable from oneself?
Yoko Ono: When I created Play It By Trust I wasn’t thinking about Duchamp at all. Many artists have worked with chess, but they usually worked with the decorative aspect of the chess pieces. I wanted to create a new chess game, making a fundamental rather than decorative change. The white chess set is a sort of life situation. Life is not all black and white, you don’t know what is yours and what is theirs. You have to convince people what is yours. In the chess situation it is simple if you are black then black is yours. But this is like a life situation, where you have to play it by convincing each other.
People think that I’m doing something shocking and ask me if I’m trying to shock people. The most shocking thing to me is that people have war, fight with each other and moreover take it for granted. The kind of thing I’m doing is almost too simple. I’m not interested in being unique or different. Everyone is different. No two persons have the same mouth shape for example, and so without making any effort we’re all different. The problem is not how to become different or unique, but how to share an experience, how to be the same almost, how to communicate.
The concept is my work. In the art world, work is shown in a museum and a lot of people or a few people will see it, then if it’s bought by someone, that’s the end of it, or it comes back every once in a while. So I like the idea that Play It By Trust is repeated in different places, because the environment makes a big difference to the piece. Again, it’s the concept that is the work.