They’re looking for women ages 18 – 40 to come in and sleep on a bed in the exhibit during museum hours, with the help of a sleeping pill. The title of the installation is “This is XX,” but the XX will be replaced with the name of the sleeper. Apparently, Yun “creates installations that challenge commonly accepted elements of contemporary society.” Compensation is $10/hour, and they’ll cover the cost of a doctor’s visit and the prescription. I can’t decide whether this is really awesome or incredibly creepy and violating, but I think that’s why I kind of really want to do it.
Photo: Flickr courtesy of Porcelaingirl° {josie-grossie}
I had written a really long, pointless comment about this piece… blah blah blah. but then i looked around and realized that it’s part of new museum’s upcoming triennial, “Young Than Jesus”— featuring 50 artists under the age of 33 (the show is a whole other issue- which i guess i’ll sort of get into).
If they’re trying to stir the pot with a “religious/heretical” show, then drugging BARELY LEAGAL (and barely clothed?) COEDS into bed will definitely get them a write-up in the Times/ the Focus on the Family monthly newsletter.
god.
Um…. dream job.
*dream* job. you writer, you.
Gotta supplement my nonexistent freelancer income somehow. But seriously if someone does this please send us a blurb about how it went. It sounds really interesting.
I’m serious about wanting to do this. I wonder what this says about my prostitutive tendencies.
i was pointing out the pun, you philistine! DREAM job. Sry.
LOL. Ok good one, I’m dumb. But whatever if you were on the NYMag approval matrix you’d be lowbrow AND despicable. <3
Nicole, this post is definitively “hot.”
Who are you and what does that even mean?
i want to do this.
wonder if this is open to commuters, eh? maybe pick up some snax @ kimmel n eat em in the commuters lounge after
Was at Frieze in London:
LONDON. Every morning of
Frieze, shortly before the fair
opens, a young woman will
take homeopathic sleeping
medicine and turn into an art
piece. Dozing on a bed in the
open area of Vitamin Creative
Space’s booth (F32) at the
northern end of the tent, the
somnolent woman will be
visible to all passersby. After
she awakes, she will go home
and leave only an empty bed
in the booth.
Each day’s piece is named
after the sleeper—today’s is
“Kate”. “In this work, I use
medicine as a way to change
[a person’s] natural state, just
as a sculpture is always
trying to reshape the earth
and stone in order to make
these materials as a piece of
artwork,” explains the artist,
Chu Yun, in his somewhat
obscure statement about the
work. “In the piece, medicine
is a method and purpose to
construct and reshape, to
reach a standard state—
Beauty.”
Britain’s art world has a
history of public sleeping, of
course. When Cornelia Parker
had actress Tilda Swinton
sleep inside a glass casket
eight hours a day at the
Serpentine, more than
21,000 people streamed
through over the course of a
week. But Vitamin’s sleeping
beauties will have a tougher
time of it, given that Frieze’s
Resonance 104.4 station lies
only feet from the bed. Thus,
the women, paid £50 ($93)
to participate, will have to
stay up all of the previous
night and sleep wearing
earplugs and a face mask.
The project is being
produced by Vitamin Space of
Guangzhou, China, a
conceptually oriented gallery
started in 2002 by writer and
curator Zhang Wei, novelist Hu
Fang and artist Zheng Guogu.
“We didn’t have a clear idea
then, except that we wanted to
work outside normal art
categories,” explains Zhang.
“For us, selling works of art is
not the goal, just a way to keep
supporting new projects.”
While both its geographic
location and artistic focus
have distanced Vitamin from
the Chinese contemporary art-
market hype raging in
Shanghai and Beijing, the
sleeper piece is for sale as a
unique conceptual work, at
$12,000 for the right to
reproduce the project.
Marc Spiegler