I came in today after everybody else had set up the show the previous day, to decide where to put my work. Having already decided it should be placed as if it were a functioning bin, I placed it beside the main pathway near the studio entrance.
After returning from lunch, I came back to find the work had been uses as an actual bin – with the leftover packaging from somebody’s lunch covering a part of the mirror.
Interestingly, once one person had used the work as a bin, it had started being used by even more people. Even by people who knew that it was an artwork… due to their natural reaction to throw their rubbish in with the rest. As I talked yesterday about “embracing the glitch”, I decided to keep the rubbish in the bin.
This changes the concept of the work, talking about the status of the work. Despite social norms dictating that we do not touch art, with my piece, people were. Throughout the afternoon the work was being moved out the way for themselves to sit down, even during the crit, and whilst discussing the work, another exhibitor was spinning it around. One reason for this response, mentioned during the crit, was because the bin was an old familiar one (the studio bin), and was used daily for its intended purpose prior to being used as part of my artwork.
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