Arty Party

In Hal Foster’s “Arty Party” there are many interesting points raised. He discusses “works which fall somewhere between a public installation, an obscure performance and a private archive” and continues stating that they can also be found outside art galleries, “rendering them even more difficult to decipher in aesthetic terms”.

There is a range of works that fall under this category that Foster mentions throughout his piece. ‘DIY, or How to Kill Yourself Anywhere in the World for under $399’ is a collaborative piece by Gonzalez-Foerster, Gillick, Tiravanija and more. They show you how to customize your own coffin out of IKEA furniture, adapting the readymade object to very unusual ends. This work, and others like it, is intriguing because the completion and or success often depends on the audience or viewer. Is it just sufficient for a work to be simply put forward? Or does the audience have to become engaged with the idea or concept enough to peruse it to its full extent in order for it to be successful?

“Underlying much of Tiravanija’s practice is a desire not just to erode the distinction between institutional and social space, but between artist and viewer; the phrase “lots of people” regularly appears on his lists of materials” Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, Claire Bishop.