Epilogue:  Art Object (Comes with Certificate of Authenticity) Or a Gift with Purchase. Jun24

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Epilogue: Art Object (Comes with Certificate of Authenticity) Or a Gift with Purchase.

Some art works operate like a bluff.  They challenge you to take them up on their offer – to call what they are as art and agree with their assigned cultural value.  While there is the concept and theory that blankets the object in its meaning, at the core of an object is the viewer’s receptivity.

For artist Jennifer Mills, every action by the viewer must be countered by an act on her part to maintain her role as saboteur.  As her art practice encompasses all aspects of the art machinery (concept, production, exhibition, viewer) the work is not finished until we have measured and documented the audience and their actions.

As part of her practice, all Mills’ objects are priced at $10 or below to counter the art industry’s valuation of works.  Specifically for the series Art Object, the artist offered the entire set of objects for a more significant sum.  Los Angeles Gallerist Steve Turner negotiated an undisclosed sum below the offered price and purchased the set.  Herein lies the criticality behind the series of these moves:  the viewer offers up a negotiated price challenging the artist’s stated worth, the artist agrees or disagrees and a sale is either gotten or forgotten.  Quite often this is the end of the artist/patron cycle in the 21st century.  But with Mills, the cycle expands to reflect on the business of art.

Ms. Mills continues her series of detournements in this instance by generously offering the Gallerist a “gift with purchase.” She has co-opted a well-known promotional gesture within commerce – the offer of additional items for free.  In this case, the offer consisted of mice to go along with the mousetraps which were the art objects purchased.  For the artist, the circle of meaning is complete: Mousetraps join mice in a paired relationship.  Within the politics of art – the conceptual object has now become something that borders on the abject.  In effect, Ms. Mills has matched Mr. Turner’s challenge of her work via the threat of killing actual living creatures.  Everything is conceptual until the mice get involved.

So – did Mr. Turner implicate himself within the sphere of Mills’ performance?  Or does he step down from his challenge and close the performance cycle?

In answer, consider Mr. Turner’s reply to the delivery of the mice:

“I cannot have caged animals around me, so I had to refuse your bonus item.”

Rodents.  They are such a problem.