(physical and network come back installation) October 21th, 2006

One reminds me of art trap.

It is a project I conceived when working on Art Impact for Beaubourg in 2000. The turnover operated in the attitude of the institution when a sponsor proposed to co-finance the work, was quite spectacular. We shifted from the ordering of an artwork and exhibition to a location renting (unfortunately under-financed, as usual) – and I thank, by the way, Daniel Soutif who, going over obstacles, made the thing possible. This sudden turn, not in Daniel Soutif’s attitude, but in the centre’s administrator’s attitude, was sufficiently spectacular and scheming so that I propose making out of it a special device.
Art Trap was born, left in the state of concept; I presume it has its place here, in the project’s purgatory.

Art Trap is funded on the idea that the artistic institution’s economy is a permanent compromise with the financiers. Some will say the whole art history is in the same boat. I, therefore propose to take possession of a location of minimum surface of 16m2, in a museum. A museum, I insist, not a gallery; it is the area dedicated in art in its most institutionalised version that interest me here. So I build four walls without ceiling above. In the middle of each wall, an opening without door. Above the opening, a projector turned inside. Online, a proposition to buy the space of visibility. Each volunteer/patron invests the desired amount of money and obtains the proportional visibility according to online engagements. The first one sees his logo, name, tag, brand on the wall facing the projector. As soon as the second one comes in for the same amount of money, each one fills only half of the space, and on and on.
When the number of « patrons » becomes significant, with plaster and trowel, I reduce the openings sizes to increase the « renting » surface. After some time, the four doors will only leave a cat size visitor in. And the so told and requested visibility would be reduced to electronic surveillance that report, online and black and white, the effective presence of the patrons with their logos.
The gained money, after deduction of charges, would be shared between the museum, renting the location, and the artist that will be able to, on a fix bank account, report the way the money is used, survival or pleasure expenses. A screen, outside the box, would transmit in real time, the state of the bank account: expenses, bills.