Come Early and Often

Solo show and event

Chapter NY, 2014

An exhibition at Chapter NY and a benefit event at the home of Christopher E. Vroom, NYC collector, philanthropist, and my previous employer at NYC nonprofit Artadia. 

American artists were becoming more and more dependent on patrons. Corporations hired artists, or they got into relationships with galleries or collectors that changed the way they made their work. It was my aim to critique the language used by the liberal elite to organize their gifts into forms of control. It’s the failure of museums and nonprofits that made artists dependent on a competitive market that doesn’t care about them. 

The show and event were entirely contingent on one another. The artworks shown in the gallery were raffle items, auctioned at the event. Benefit members included Paul Pfeiffer, Rick Lowe, Dana Hoey, Liam Gillick, Aura Rosenberg, Josh Kline, Alex Kitnick, Zackary Drucker, Chris Kasper, Daphne Fitzpatrick, Kelly Taxter and more. Artists were paid to perform throughout the event. Painter and artist Paul Heyer dressed as a clown and painted faces with MFA students. Daphne Fitzpatrick gave a toast to a threesome. Liam Gillick performed as the philanthropist and host Chris Vroom. Poet Hossanah Asuncion read in the bedroom. As people exited the event Aura Rosenburg and I wrapped people’s personal items (cigarettes, watches, etc) in printed pornography and that was their take-away item or ‘Goody Bag’.

I was listed as Event Planner and scripted all texts. An ‘Against Coming’ app, designed by Robert M. Ochshorn was available to ticket buyers and gave notifications to each patron so that buyers can see exactly what happens to their money. Examples included ‘lipstick cornered cover up’ and ‘another lawyer’. The App played upon expectations related to how donors and patrons imagine their gift to function. In actuality proceeds went to assisting women with safe abortions in my home state Wisconsin.

SOME PRESS + RELEASE