DAMAGED GOODS
1986
Exhibition design as my artist contribution to the exhibition, curated by Brian Wallis, The New Museum, NYC, Summer 1986
For the first museum show of ‘appropriation art’ my artist contribution was to design the exhibition, hence I collaborated with many of the artists on the display and presentation of their work (some more than others). The artists included Gretchen Bender, Barbara Bloom, Andrea Fraser, Jeff Koons, Justin Ladda, Louise Lawler and Ken Lum.
My essay, Dissenting Spaces, from the catalogue for Damaged Goods has been reprinted in Greenberg/
Ferguson/Naire’s Thinking About Exhibitions.
Related publications:
Dissenting Space, Judith Barry, Download Link
Dissenting Spaces (Public Fantasy), Judith Barry, Download Link
The Exhibitionist, Piper Marshall, Download Link
Installation shot showing Justen Ladda’s and Haim Steinbach’s work
For example, with McCollum’s work I convinced him to display his 200 Perfect Vessels on 20 bases that I used to animate the space, rather than on a table in the corner as he initially planned.
Installation shots showing Jeff Koons, Allen McCollum, Louise Lawler and Gretchen Bender
The overall design of the exhibition sought to construct a new kind of exhibition space that would allow a play of objects across a libidinal space such that various subject positions vis-à-vis these objects might be taken up by the spectator. This play was dependent upon the objects being dispersed throughout the space.
Installation shots showing Jeff Koons, Allen McCollum, Louise Lawler and Gretchen Bender
The interactive nature of the exhibition was highlighted by blurring the distinctions between several types of specular sites: the department store…
…the jewelry store, the Natural History Museum and the theater. This interest in commodity forms as producing different subject effects led directly to an investigation into how the commodity might be critically deployed within consumer culture.
