Pierre Bal-Blanc: Employment Contract
According to the agreement, Bal-Blanc would carry out a paid daily task that took a minimum of five minutes for the two months duration of the exhibition Gegendarstellung: Ethik und Ästhetik im Zeitalter von AIDS. The artwork by Félix González-Torres, “Untitled” (Go-Go Dancing Platform) from 1991, forms the pedestal upon which the performance takes place and through which the “object-gaze” is formulated.
In the video, the viewer witnesses someone becoming the art object. The video also renders the inner structure of the Cuban artist’s work visible, lending substance to the viewpoint of the performer executing that work. The reversal of the gaze carried out in the video—which itself proceeded from a reversal of perspective in which the visitor to the exhibition perceived only a pedestal waiting to receive a body or the spectacle of a dance turned toward itself—is tallied with a new aesthetic of reception.
About
Jeff Wall Production is the name of the production label initiated by Pierre Bal-Blanc, which takes the title of his first project dedicated to the artist with the same name in 1988. The subject of this seminal project has since become the trademark of the following projects.
WORK WORK WORK
During WORK WORK WORK, Frascati will open its doors as a museum for performance art for four days. Each day the building will be open for eight hours, representing a working day. Dries Verhoeven co-curates the programme with his own work and that of others into a large number of performance, fine art and video works about the relationship between employer, employee and (art) consumer. Together, the artists explore the politics of the working body now and in the future.
Check out the other works of WORK WORK WORK