Valentine Mark Herman

[Petrolpetal]

Its worth zooming in and reading the text! Very clever conceptual mail art!

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Merci, Erni. That's interesting what the Senator did. I don't know much about making art accessible to and for the blind, but i know it exists.

[Valentine Mark Herman]

ERNI: The non-exhibition has been done on more than one occasion, alas.

(I recall reading about one that had a single room which you entered through a large black curtain. the room was blank. It had a very small canle in it. You exited through another large black curtain. That was it.

Also, I once went to an exhibition of Minimalist Art at, I think, the Arsenal in Vienna. The art was so minimal that the most interesting thing about the exhibition was to read the descriptive labels -- which were full of absolutely pretentious rubbish, and, in many cases, quite funny, and, in most cases, much more interesting than the [non-] works they were 'describing')

A variation on what I think you have in mind is an exhibition of 'Invisible Art'. Here's something I sent to Petrolpetal yesterday:

"In 2012, there was an exhibition titled 'Invisible Art: About the Unseen',* at the Hayward Gallery in London. (I didn't go, but I got the catalogue°). It was basically about art -- if you can call it that -- that didn't exist: an empty plinth, a blank wall,  some air bottled in a glass jar, a room with nothing in it, etc.

Fascinating, but, well, daft.

Imagine this conversation between a Curator (C) and the Hayward's Director (D):

C: I've got this great idea for an exhibition.

D: what's it  going to be about?

C: er, invisible art.

D: what's that?

C: art that, well, doesn't exist.

D: how do you plan to exhibit something that doesn't exist?

C: dunno, but give me a budget, and I'm bound to come up with something

D: we have lots of things here that do exist. Why can't we exhibit them?

C: (deathly silence, and then, well you can continue this if you like, Dear Petrolpettal)

Or Dear Erni.

Things I have wanted to do exhibition wise are:

i) name a theme, and then ask people to bring 'stuff' along related to it (preferably with a description of it) and arrange it in an exhibition space anyway that they like.

ii) provide some 'stuff', and then ask people to select and exhibit this how they like. (For this you have to have lots of interesting stuff, and the problem is to find it. But now, thanks to you, I know where to find it....at the Senator's shop!

(Both of these could be called 'Peoples' Exhibitions.)

*PS: for the 'Do Not Open' envelope that started this off and that I sent to Petrolpetal, I originally came up with the concept of 'invisible art', before the Hayward Gallery's exhibition. Sadly, my enevelope was not included in their exhibition. But then the curator was probably not a member of IUOMA)

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

I remember the "Don't Open" video...that was very clever too, like Val-the-Pal! hahaha!

Great fun here :-)

[Petrolpetal]

Yup. I have to admit I'm impressed. The more so by seeing the video he referred me too. Not sure if I should respond here. Actually I think it deserves it's own blog post...stand by...

[Eva (Mail Adventures)]

This is soooo clever!