I wanted to know how a work of art might be judged if it was not signed. I was curious to know what the Tate Gallery in London would do with a painting that arrived at their door unsigned, with no indication of gender, age, country, experience, resume etc.
I wanted to know if they would store it away or destroy it.
To find out, I shipped a large painting rolled up in a large heavy duty cardboard tube in summer of 1993. I never did find out what happened. Does anyone know? I simply signed the painting with the handprint of my hand dipped in paint. I can’t remember the exact size but it filled one wall of the living room in the house I was staying in in Oxford.
At the time I sent out anonymous news releases to a number of the major newspapers and broadcasters. None of them seemed to pick up what I thought was a good news story. We always hear the public complain about the choices of art in our art institutions and these same institutions always defend their choices by saying that they know what they are doing and the public doesn’t. (I tend to generally agree with the institutions by the way:)
But I am still intrigued by the question of what the Tate would do with an unsigned painting arriving at their door. Would they destroy it? Throw it in the dumpster?
What happened to that painting? Does anyone know? Could anyone who reads this take it on to find out?
Contact the media … contact the Tate Modern?
Would other artists be interested in sending their work unsigned to the Tate…. how many would they throw in the dumpster?
More recently I noticed that the Tate Gallery had an event where “known” artists works chose to throw one of their works into a dumpsters as an action of art, but in my view that is much less interesting because one knew what was being discarded.
I believe that my action has asked a broader and much more important question. How does one judge a work of art on it’s own merit without the knowledge of the creator, the history, the context , etc.
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