Durational performance
July 10 - 15, 2007
5pm-8pm
Location: Art galleries & the surrounding streets
Description: One week prior to the performance, galleries received a fax from a new neighborhood venture (“Art Services”) indicating that the gallery won a free trial of “WASTE” services. Upon arrival, galleries selected the services they wanted performed (mopping, window washing, trash removal, etc.) from a sheet on a clipboard. Afterwards, the gallery’s signature on the form confirmed their satisfaction with the services delivered, and Art Services (WASTE) extended its activity to the streets.
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image above: from the Press Release
Press Release:
WELCOME US TO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD!
ART SERVICES (WASTE)
"In addition to the work of production, all site or situationally specific projects involve 'an amount of labor that is either in excess of, or independent of, any specific material production and which cannot be transacted as ... a product' ... '(S)ervices' have been important as a theme in art at least since the late 1960's, particularly in performance and feminist art, and as a strategic element since the appropriation of institutional functions in practices of institutional critique." -Andrea Fraser from Museum Highlights: The Writings of Andrea Fraser, 1997
Art Services (Waste) is a durational performance that engages the social and economic implications of the term "service" in order to raise an awareness of the intangible and hidden by-products (and agendas) of Art activities in a community. So much of the art world's activities - making, selling, experiencing, etc. - are dependent upon fantasy and the suspension of disbelief. As such, how labor is demonstrated and measured in this social-economic sphere is necessarily impalpable and obscured, thus paralleling the form of service-based work activities. Art Services (Waste) is a two-part performance that takes place both in the Logan Circle art gallery spaces and on the streets of the area and explores the relationship between artists, art galleries, and the role of Art in gentrification.
Prior to the performance, galleries along the 14th Street Art Corridor received faxed or emailed advertisements for Art Services. A second fax was sent informing the galleries that they were the chosen recipients of a free trial day of Waste Services Access. An Art Services Representative phoned each gallery, and left a courtesy call reminder message about the date their gallery would be serviced.
The act of collecting the galleries' waste focuses attention on the ephemeral remains of the labor performed by art galleries. Similar to scientists that study the feces of animals to understand their biological workings and the environment they inhabit, collecting this trash is an exploratory endeavor that will be performed with an exacting methodology. The repetitive process of cleaning and re-cleaning emphasizes the effort of preserving the pristine whiteness of the gallery "white cube" - a space of cultural production with its own set of self-imposed rules and indoctrinated protocol for maintaining exterior/interior appearances.
Additionally, the performance explores the relationship between an artist and art galleries; to this day, artists and galleries remain bounded to each other for the products of their labor. However, most living artists rarely support themselves financially on the returns from artwork sales alone and often hold more that one job to make ends meet. In this way, many artists' economic situations parallel those of other low-wage workers that hold day and night jobs; out of necessity both wear multiple hats, and the labor performed as an artist often goes unnoticed, much like the laborers who provide the often taken for granted nightly cleaning services to the office buildings in Washington, DC. Thus, in the gallery-based performance, "blue collar" and "white collar" forms of labor are juxtaposed as the Art Services Workman clocks in at the close of "normal" work hours to clean away the residue of the gallery workers' day. Taking the performance out to the street engages another critique of the impact of Art activity within a community, specifically, its contribution to the gentrification of a city.
"Want to know where a great place to invest in real estate will be five or 10 years from now? Look at where artists are living now." - Richard Florida in There Goes the Neighborhood: How and Why Bohemians, Artists and Gays Effect Regional Housing Values
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Florida's observation characterizes the physical and economic change experienced within the last five to ten years in the Logan Circle area. Now affectionately dubbed "The 14th Street Art Corridor," this portion of the performance directly explores the problematic relationship of Art, artists, and the gentrification process. Many local artists have been physically displaced (homes and studios) from the area as expensive real estate properties (residential and commercial, including the art galleries themselves) have moved in. The catch-22 is that the artists are still tied to the area, bounded to the art world social and economic capital that circulates through the galleries of the very neighborhood that used to be their studios' home. By literally cleaning the streets along this corridor of Art-based activity, the performance calls attention to how artists and Art in general have been used as devices in the production of economic and cultural change for this area of the city; the aesthetics of Art have been appropriated by the city in the name of progress. In general, the movement of Art and its business into the former "Garbage District" turned "Garden District" has played a significant role in creating the contemporary aesthetic of the Logan Circle neighborhood. Art Services (Waste) intends to evoke a reminder of the question, "all this change ... to whom and at what cost?"
- Kathryn Cornelius, 2007