alberro sieglaub

8/7/2019 alberro sieglaub

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The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England conceptua I art and the politics of publicity

alexander alberro


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chapter seventhe siegelaub idea

Artists have finally been accepted as idea men and not merely as craftsmen with poetic thoughts.-Seth Siegelaub. 19691

Is it so surprising that in a time when postindustrial ephemeralization is rampant, when inror-mation bits are speedier and more important than heavy matter or face-to-f ace contact, whenweare bombarded with message units, when time is so precious it almost has become a substance,when space is at a premium, when history forces us to dematerialize, that artists everywtlereshould come up with Conceptual Art? Conceptual Art is a symptom of globalism and it is thefirst-Surrealism almost was-really international art style.

-John Perreault , 1971'

Even before the "January 5-31. 1969" show closed, Siegelaub was planning several more pub-lic exhibitions that employed the infrastructure of publicity as medium and problematizedthe rraditional boundaries of artistic production.' He increasingly came to realize the enor-

mous implications of the art produced in tandem with the practice of presentation he orig inated. Not only were the new modes of artistic production, presentation, and distribution capable of expanding the work's audience, bu t according to Siegelaub they also rendered "the idea of individual ownership of works of art" a "passe condition," in many cases "totally ..impossible" since "the experience" of an art presented through the infrastructure of public- '"";ity and display "is everybody's immediately." Recall that his advert in ArtfOrum for the Hue- '"bier show, in its role as documentation, already constituted a fragment of the work, andtherefore whoever possessed the journal had a stake in the artist's production; similarly, ;:

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..Barry's Inert Gas was publicly accessible through a telephone answering service in Los An- :l.geles. By harnessing the distribution medium, Siegelaub made an unlimited viewership a

real possibility. S This condition, in which ar tbecame unpreceden edly uncircumscribed and =c'"mobile, put pressure on structures such as the gallery network that hierarchize through in- clusion and exclusion. "Now," Siegelaub observed in the spring of 1969, an artist does not a"have to be involved in a gallery or be uptight about not having a gallery. [Whereas] before it was a sign of shame. It doesn't make any fucking difference anymore.'"

Rather than a gallery in a particular fixed location, Siegelaub's site of exhibitionwas as ephemeral as it was vast. "I broke down, like, what a gallery does. What is its func-tion' Its primary function is that it's a place for artists to put their work out. But it breaksdown to many aspects. . There's space, there's money, there's exposure or publicity, youknow, there are a number of things. And I've just, in a sense, eliminated space. My gallery isthe world novl" Of course, the work produced by the artists he represented facilitated thisconception of space, since one of the characteristics of a work presented in linguistic andgraphic terms as pages in catalogues and magazines was that it could be distributed "allover the world v ery v ery quicklY"

Most significant for Siegelaub at the time was his belief that the ability to distrib-ute the new art as primary information made geographical "decenrralization" possible. ")think New York is beginning to break down as a cen er," he remarked in the summer of 1969."Not that there will be another city to replace it, but rather where any artist is will be thecenter."' From Siegelaub's perspective, the deterritorializing properties of conceptual art lib-erated it not only from traditional institutional sites of display, but also from geographicalcenters.'oIn this sense, Siegelaub's metaphors of a shrinkingworld of complex connectivitywere of a piece with the infamous communications discourse propagated by MarshallMcLuhan and his followers, who exalted advances in telecommunications and their global '"'"


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... message with delirious optimism. McLuhan's championing of th'e medium of communica-"' tion over the contents of media messages, encapsulated in his formula "the medium is themessage; transferred meaning onto the medium itself through the technological structure .The sign value of art became triumphant as art's use value (and exchange value) came to bedetermined by its mode of distribution rather than its content. Not everyone celebrated thepotential of new media so uncritically, as is evident in the contemporaneous work of HansMagnus Enzensberger, who warned against the one-way communication of the media atpains to exclude the possibility of response.ll Enzensberger's argument represents the oppo-site pole fro m MCLuhan's position, a critical standpoint to which Siegelaub would graduallymove in the following years.

Siegelaub 's hyperbolic post-196B proclamations of global interconnectedness, ofthe world as his gallery, have direct parallels in the consequences of the cybernetic andinformational revolutions for marketing and finance. The postindustrial ephemeralization"of the 1960s and 1970s, in which mechanized technologies of communication were intensi-fied to the point that capital and informational transfers could be instantaneously effectu-ated around the globe from one national zone to another, dramatically announced a newphase of globalization ." From the instrumental point of view of advanced capitalism, whatwas heralded was an increased functional proximity, in which deterritorialized spaces andconnecting corridors were created to ease the flow of capital (including its commodities andpersonnel), and the time-space compression of connectivity was matched with a degree ofcultural compression."" The fact that conceptual art 's method of production and Siege-laub's method of distribution were at one with globalization soon rendered both profoundlyeconomic, and integrated them into advanced capitalism's generalized commodity system .But this fate was not initially evident.

INFORMATION AND PHANTASMAGORIA

In 1969 Siegelaub organized a series of shows characterized by greatly broadened exhibitionspaces and artworks that further decentered the relationshipbetween primary and second-ary information. For "Joseph Kosuth, Robert Morris: sponsored by Bradford Junior Co llege'sLaura Knott Ga llery in March of that yea r, the primary information was presented in thecatalogue and the secondary information on the premises of the gallery space." This was an

extraordinary reversal of the usual format in which primary information is on view in theexhibition space, and the catalogue is reserved for secondary information. It also indicateda transformation of the very nature of the art represented. As Siegelaub explained in a No-vember 1969 interview,

"a.when art does not any longer depend upon its physical presence, when it has become an abstraction, it is not distorted and altered by its representation in books and catalogues. It becomes PRIMARY

information; while the reproduction of conventional art in books or catalogues is necessarily ;..

SECONDARY information. When information is PRIMARY, the catalogue can become theexhibition. S i

or

Yet, when we consider that Morris's piece at the "Joseph Kosuth, Robert Morris" show fea- "00.tured a rubber stamp on the paper towels in the restrooms-presumably, anyone who han- ;;Cdled a paper towel would thus possess the work-the possibility that some thing else was at t7play becomes real. By restricting the primary information to the catalogue, Siegelaub had also limited and controlled the potential ownership of the work.

Another exhibition Siegelaub organized that year, "One Month ," took the form of acalendar of the month of March 1969, during which a day was assigned t o each of the thirty_one invited artists ." As with "The Xerox Book," the information presented in the cataloguewas "primary" and there was no exhibition site or gallery to be visited ." "You dontneed walls Ito show ideas; Siegelaub explain ed to Art in America 's David Shirey in the spring of 1969, ex-tolling the virtues of working with primary rather than more conventional secondary infor- Jmation. People who have galleries can show their objects only in one place at a time. I'm notlimited. I can have my ideas in twenty different places at once. Ideas are faster than tediousobjects."" In other words, the new method of exhibition not only delimited the size of the au -dience,but also shifted the emphasis from objec ts to ideas. And according to Siegelaub, nowthat the object had been eliminated and the ar t only existed as an idea, to become aware ofthat idea was to possess it."

The implications of this new mode of art for the market were enormous, as evi-denced by Patricia Norvell 's somewhat puzzled observation during her early 1969 interviewwith Siegelaub: "You ca n't make anyone pay for thinking about [artJ.""Siegelaub soon founda solution to this obstacle, as the traces of these "thoughts" came to be offered for sale as

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http:///reader/full/response.llhttp:///reader/full/response.llhttp:///reader/full/response.ll


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fetishistic substitutes for the "lost" objects. Here again, the parallels between this new art'"'" and advertising (which sells ideas as fluidly as objects) are striking. for as Baudrillard showsin For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, advanced capitalism relies on the construc-tion of sign values to establish the relative values of objects" With systems of thought andsigns (and not just materi al objects) reified and commodified. even priceless ness can con-tribute to the marketing of a product by increasing its desirability.

The distinction between primary and secondary information was also central tothe "Simon Fraser Exhibition" that Siegelaub organized at the gallery of Simon Fraser Uni-versity (SFU] in Vancouver for May and June of 1969 ." As he outlined the show to universityofficials:

The exhibition will have no title. . . . The overall plan: 1. Print 1000 copies of he enclosed poster be-fore the exhibition opens, and distribute. 2. During 19 May and 19 June the work of each artist willbe introduced into the community at Simon Fraser. 3. (Towards) the end of he exhibition a catalogof the exhibition (,what has happened') will be printed and distributed (approximately 12 pageswith photos-details to .fOllow) ."What is striking about this "overall plan" is the equivalence it posits between the work andits publicity. As he had done on several recent occasions, Siegelaub also organized a sympo-sium with the artists to coincide with the exhibition. In this case, however, he arranged forthe artists to communicate with each other and the audience by means of a telephonehookup linking New York (Kosuth, Barry, LeWttt, Weiner, Huebler. and Siegelaub in the roleof moderator), Ottawa (Baxter), and Vancouver Gocal critics and curators). This multicontextelectronic conversation was transmi tted to an assembled audience over the public addresssystem in the SFU Theater." Telephones were also installed in the theater, and, following anexchange between the artists. the audience was invited to participate in the discussion.

This use of technology to enhance communications not only indicates the consid-erable energy and creativity with which Siegelaub operated at the time, but also provides afurther example of media fetishization and points to a utopian belief that technology coulddirectly produce communication. This view had been held earlier by Walter Benjamin in di-alogue with Bertolt Brecht. and later by Enzensberger who, referring to Brecht's essay on thepotential use of radio. noted about mass media generally, "For the first time in history, the

..media are making possible mass participation in a social and socialized productive process,the practical means of which are in the hands of the masses themsel ves:'" However, En- zensberger continues, "in its pres ent form equipment like television or film does not serve communication but prevents it. It allows for no reciprocal action between transmitt er and .."This inadequacy occurs not b ecause of a lack of technology for a two-way flow of ."CI(;communication, but rather because the social structure of advanced capitalism prevents its realizat ion." According to Enzensberger, without a radical transform ation of the basic eco- ;nomic system upon which Western society is based, the overarching unidirectional relation-

..;..ship of transmitter and receiver will not be altered regardless of how revolutionary and apotentially communicative the media. This was precisely the situation that confronted

Siegelaub. Although he had discovered the means by which to transmit and disseminate ..art to a broader public, the commodity form was not abolished; the basic capitalist eco- ;;;nomic structure remained in place a nd governed how the art market did business. Thus, to 0-return to a concrete example, though the Xerox Corporation's photocopy machine po- tentially provided an ideal means of aesthetic production. as Enzensberger woefully notes,

"The technically most advanced electrostatic copying machine, which operates with ordi-nary paper-which cannot. that is to say, be supervised and is independent of suppliers-isthe property of a monopoly (Xerox) , on principle it is not sold but rented. The rates them-selves ensure that it does not get into the wrong hands: '" Which begins to explain why in theend Siegelaub was ultimately denied access to the more advanced technology of Xerox(which was reserved to serve more clearly corporate interests) and had to rely on a conven-tional printing press for his "Xerox Book" project.

In March of 1969 Siegelaub embarked on a show, "July. August, September 1969,"that sought to extend over an even great er geographical scope, iterating "a certain interna-tional sensibility that [hej sensed among artists throughout the world" (fig. 7.1) ." Meta-phOrically alluding to the phenomenon of decentralization rapidly coming to characterizemodem life, the exhibition took place simultaneously in a number of geographical locationswidely separated from one another, but excluding New York City. O Some of the works wereinstantane ous, others only accessible part of the time, and yet others observable throughoutthe length of the show and beyond. The trilingual exhibition catalogue was the only sitewhere the show was prese nted as a whole" According to Siegelaub, the multili ngual text en-abled the show to transcend a limiting locality, furthering "global communications, rather

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;':,than limited and limiting local distribution."" Globalization contributed to the catalogue's

function as a broad frame,marking the global bounds of the primary information presented'\0. in this international show.r .., . t..... 10e "July, August, September 1969" show crystallized the key aspects ofSiegelaub's

../ " catalogueexhibitions. First, the exhibition catalogue was kept as disinterested and neutral ..,"1'). ,. / ' 0,:L- as possible. introduct ory comments were conspicuously absent. as were explanatory critical '"........, [essays. Second, the works were presented in an undiscriminating way, precluding hierarchyamong the artists. Each artist was allocated the same amount of space: two pages.1Oird, t he ;]

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thirtytwo pages were divided into two sections, one presen ting "primary information" ("the'""!i a. work itselfj and the other "secondary information" about where and when the material el. ements that supplemented that primary information could be seen during the show To :r"gether, the two sections functioned to delineate the parameters of the individual pieces ':i:"included in the exhibition, thereby making them more comprehensible to the public. in all acases, however. the catalogue served to present the work throughout the world. By . , " the relationship and rendering the material in the catalogue primary information and that J,.,.. at the parti cular geographical sites secondary information, Siegelaub once again lifted artis 1tic production from it s hitherto close connection with physical locality and disseminated it !,\quickly and broadly. 10is method of distribution paralleled transformations in the dissemi /nation of information brought about by contemporary globalization." f,Siegelaub's euphoria about information going back and forth quickly parallels ,:}.McLuhan's pronouncement of the "global village" in which "electric circuitry has overthrownthe regime of time' and 'space' and pours upon us instantly and continuously the concernsof all other men."" Both envision a kind of cyberspace in which culture and . more directly forSiegelaub, ar t have reached their ultimate dematerialization, as messages pass instantaneously from one nodal point to anoth er across the globe, the formal material world. In this )1transformation, wi th artworks become increasingly phanstasmagor ic, existing primarily as ,the dissemination of information, the possibility of devising concrete material str uctures Icapable of anchoring ownership seemed more than ever to be an impossibilityTHE RECONST ITUT ION OF TH E FRAGMENT

G By the end of 1969, the importance of Siegelaub's catalogues and the work they exhibitedwas broadly acknowledged in North America and Europe. Articles in a wide array of newsCover of July, August, September 1969, 1969 '"'"


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o papers and journals, including the New York Times, Studio International, New York, Mademoiselle,'" even the Financial Times, reported on the "January 5-31, 1969" exhibition" The rapidly grow-ing focus on Siegelaub 's activities cUlminated in Vogue magazine selecting him as one of themost likely to succeed in the upcoming decade.' By mid-1969, in one of the more startlinginversions of the mode of fabrication, exhibition, and distribution that Siegelaub had spear-headed, not only the totality of his practice but also the work it featured was discussed in thepopular press as "the Siegelaub idea." Mademoiselle reported that the "essence of the Siege-laub idea. . is: the idea is the work of art."" This led some to speculate that Siegelaub hadcrossed the line and taken on the role ofan artist-a role he refused to accept publicly."

The growing political dimension of Siegelaub's work was reinforced by the dis-paraging remarks of critics such as Barbara Rose who, in the summer of 1969, noted that "agreat deal of the new art cannot be bought, sold, owned or traded" in the conventional man-ner, and warned that "if one wanted to read a political message into recent American art, itwould be that this country is on the way to some form of socialism."" Placing Siegelaub's artpractice in the context of the protest movements of the late 1960s was neither inconsistentnor far-fetched_ In 1969 Siegelaub became increasingly involved in the newfound commu-nity spirit of he Art Workers Coalition. In April of that year he began to contemplate ways inwhich artists mig ht receive more rights and exert greater control over their work. He openlywondered during the interview with Norvell: "Why don't artists have a community o f inter-est amongst themselves the way musicians have, an ASCAP (American Scciety of Com-posers, Authors, and Publishers] or some musicians' union. You know, whereas a man cancompose music and be relatively sure that when the music is played somewhere he getsroyalties on it."


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B Pages lram Prospect 69, 1969

Weiner in the form of a series of self-interviews to appear in the exhibition catalogue, re-calling the Arthur R. Rose interviews that supplemented the "January 5-31,1969" exhibition (fig . 7.2). Whereas the earlier interviews had served as secondary information publicizing the ;0-artists' work, they now functioned as primary information; the interviews were the work. Each fragment, formerly incomplete and needing to direct its atten tion elsewhere, beyond it- ...

[(;self, toward what was supposed to complete (and also abolish) it, now constituted a wholeartwork in its own right. In the process, publicity took on an "art" status. The tenuousness ofthe fragment was superseded by this reconstitution of secondary information as primary.

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TH E AR T I S T ' S RESERVED R IGHTS

T R A N S F E R AND SALE A G R E E M E N T ".0;-0-"Prospect 69" was the last exhibition in which Siegelaub exclusively presented the work of "

Barry, Huebler, Kosuth, and Weiner. Rather than representing the concerns of a small group of artists, he now perceived his role to be to disseminate this new, experimental art as and extensively as possible." Accordingly, in the twelve months following the summer of1969, Siegelaub helped organize an unaffiliated series of what he referred to as "large, inclu-sive chaotic The egalitarian condition of these shows was unprecedented, asthey refused all normative limits previously governing the production and exhibition of art.Any type of proposal demanded to be considered equal in value t o any other, and the role ofartist was open to anyone regardless of aaining"

Not surprisingly, given the conaadictory nature of much of the highly innovativeart during this period, the opposite reading emerged at the same time. [n an April 1969 re-view of Siegelaub's "One Month" exhibition in The Nation, for instance, Lawrence Allowaynoted that such "aphoristic or propositional forms of art" integrated the fact that art was es-sentially"a aansmittable commodity" into their very form. According to Alloway, this madeit both more difficult and easier for the dealer to distribute the art. On the one hand, "as doc-uments or as irteducible presence, .. . the galleries cannot do much to display such workwithin the canon of authenticity which is their main source of Buton the other hand,since "the techniques by which ar t objects are sold can also be applied to the thoughts or theservices of the artist:' "handling coded information rather than precious things" leaves "thesystem of distribution of art which the galleries represent .. . baSically intact," and in fact '""


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... makes the dealer's job less expensive and more efficient. o Alloway thus echoes Kaprow's ob-'" servation cited earlier that as art becomes more and more integrated with advertiSing, deal-ers will increasingly be able to manage the careers of the new artists.51 Concomitant witheasier and more efficient systems of distribution came an increased anxiety concerningownership and authorship. For though the artists themselves may have denied or questionedtraditional concepts of authorship, this did not arrest anxiety concerrilng authentic ity

Siegelaub had developed a rather efficient means of retailing this art: as early as1968 he had drawn up "the relevant documents to certify ownership" that would be trans-ferred to collecto rs to affirm thei r property" But as he became increasingly poli ticized in theimmediately following years, this marketing strategy was put in the service of protectingartists' economic rights and control over their work, culminating in the Artist's ReservedRights Transfer and Sale Agreement (figs. 7.3-7.5).

Commencing in late 1969 and continuing for the better part of a year, Siegelaubconducted exploratory conversations in the art world, particularly in New York but also inEurope, and, with the help o f New York lawyer Robert Projansky, drafted a contract thatwould safeguard the interests o f artists. In January 1971, this draft was photocopied and dis-tributed at no cost to five hundred people through art schools, universities, galleries, muse-ums, artists' bars, and Siegelaub's by now extensive mailing list, asking for the ir opinion"Then, with the help of the replies received, the final form of the contract was prepared, alongwith information about its use, and widely disseminated in a number of contexts and lan-guages" The contract first appeared in Studio International in April 1971, along with Siege-laub's explanatory preambl e outlining how it was initially conceived and the practical detailsof its current use. The instructions read: "1. To begin Xerox or offset a numb er of copies ofeach page of the agreement The easily accessible Agreement, distributed as printedmatter in journals and magazines, was similar in form to much o f the art Siegelaub had re-cently represented. Projansky's meticulous brief of the legal terms of the Agreemen t advisedartists who might be int erested in employing it without incurring legal consultation fees. Thecontract greatly expanded artists' ability to negotiate sales without relying on galleries orother such in termediaries. Both comprehensible and accessible, Siegelaub and Projansky'sAgreement pushed the former's efforts to reform domina nt ar t market practices. Now artistscould even control the financial aspects of their production .

Broadly speaking, then, the Agreement was a political project that provided thegroundwork for substantive art ist empowerment. The hidden inequities and injustices it ad-

Artist's agreementFlU in date.names andaddressesof C'arties

Fill in dataiden1itylngIheWork

Fill in priceot value; strikaOUI one nOIapplicable

Fill In name,address ofartist's agen!.if any; slrikeoul one nolappticOll>feFill in !tame.address ofarll s!s agent.if any : strikeout on8 nolapplicable

AGREEMENT OF ORIGINAL TRANSFER OF WORK OF ARTThis agreemenl made this dyof . 19__ . by and -----------_______-lChereinalter the "Artist"), mldingaJ- _________________ (h.rwlnan.t U. "Collector"), residng.,L-________________________ ___WITNESSETH : . .WHEREAS tf1e Artist haa creatad Ihal certain wortr. of art;Titla: IdenlilicaUon . :_________Oale : Matarial:___________OlmeMlons: Oescriptlon :________ _(hera/n.", "the Work"); ., d o purchase the Work fromWHEREAS Collectorand ArtIlt racognlze thai tN vatu. of It . Wor1t, unllk, IMt of an ordinary chan..,. Iand will be by ..ch and other wolil: 01 an the has crwat.d and will hereafter creal,: andWHEREAS tt. partin expecl rha value at the Work 10 Inc,.. . here_fler: andWHEREAS Cort.ctor II'd Anial, recognize thai It it tltting and proper thsl Arlil,\>artlcipate In any appred.emi value which may tf'1ua b, craaled In th' Work: and . .WHEHEAS the p.rtles wish the integrity and cl.rity of the Artlsrs ide.. and sta,ements in Ina Wort.: to titmeintalned and sublectln Plrt fo the will or advice 01 !he creator of ttll Work,NOW, THEREFORE, In con,iderallon01 the foregOing pramisn and the mutual covenants nareinalle r stttorth and o!her valueJM consld....lione .. . partiat herale 8gree ., ollows:PURCHAaI'AND SALE. ARTICLE oNE:TN Artilt hireby' sell. to CollectDr Ind Colkictor hereby the Work tlom Artist ,ubjectlo ai' 1M covenants ntreln ... t tonh (for tf'Ie 1 ' .racelpt or which It herwby acknowledged) (It the agreed valuation for tM PUrpGSH of tf'1is agreemenl 01 .. . ,FUTUf'E TRANSFERS: ARTICLE rNO Coflector rowenan" tMlln the evant Collector ,,...U !'WInntt,r sell$l1..... t.-rant. bar1er. excrtanga. USlgn. lransfer, convey 0' alienate thI Work. in ITlllnne, whatlOeYer or destroyed.1 collector's transleree. with \titst ) within mlrty day. of ,u.::h transr... CID-tribuUorl. or payment at Insurance proceeda. and Ihall(bl PY' ,urn equal to "fteen pereant (15'%) 01 the Appreciated Value (as defined) . if 1ITf. payment 01 Insurance procnda(ArHat at the addrns SII_______ ) within thirty day, at such transler, dlatributlon, OJ paytMnl of lnaurenctprocMds. . .PRIC!JYALUI!.. ARnClE THREE: The "price or walue" \0 be ."UUed on mANSFER AGREE"MENT ANDRECORD shall be: .. 0; exchanged lor8v"uable cone/de"tlorr; or "Ie) !he tair marbl value 01 the Work H llS transferred In any other m .u,er.APPRECIATED YALUI!.. ARTICLE FOUR: "Appreciated Velue" of thI Work lor I,he purposes ollhis Agree-ment. shatl ba lhe inc",,,, II any, in U. walue or price 01 the Worle set forO! In current duly axecul8d c::filed TRANSFER AGREEMENT AND RECORO, aver 1M price or value sel lortn In ARTICLE ONE herlin


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Artist's agreementTRANSFEREES TO RAnFY AOREEEMENT. ARTICLE FIVE : eoll,ctor hlreby covenants thai he will nothereallAlr ,all, give, grant, barter, exchange. assign, transf'r, convey or ,I ianlte the Work. In any manne'whatsoever or permit the Wor1t to pus by inhlr lt.nce or bequest or by operation of law to any person'Aithove procuring such transferee's f8tincalion and affirm_lion 01 all lhe terms 01 thiS! Agreement andIrSnsl.ree', agreement 10 be bound h8rl1by 100 10 perform and fulfill aJ of che Collector's covenan!.s set ransferee's subscriplion

S!nte QUI one PROVENANCE. ARTICLE SIX: Anist hertby covenants that (Artist) (Artlsl's agent for the purpose as setoolappli ea Ola forth In AAnCLE TWO) will maintain a r le and nlcord of each and every transfer 01 the Work for ,*hich TRANSFER AGREEMENT ANO RECORD 1 .. been duly filed pursuant to ARTICLE TWO herein and will atthe request 01 the Collector or Collaetor's SlJCC8lSOr'1l in Inlerest, lUI fnat inlarest snllli appear, lumlsn inwriting a hlltory 01 the Wor; based upon said records and upon notices ofproposad public exhib itions and will certify In writing said provenance and hlttory and the .uthenticity 01[he Work to Collector and his n Intamt, IIIId t Collector's rauonabt. request. to critics andscholars. Said recordl ,hall be the sole property of the ArttsLEXHIBtnON. ARTICLE SEVEN: Artist and Colleclor mUtually cownanl that(.) Colieclor shaIl give Artistwritten notice 01 CoI!ecto(alntenUon to causa or permil lhe Work to beexhibited to the public, ad'lisitIQ Artist 01 .It d.t. lIs 01 such proposed .xhlbltion whic.h shall have beenmada knOllfn to Collectof by tha axhibltor. Said notice shllIl given lor each luch exhibition prior to anycommunication to the exhibitor or the publiC 01 CoIiKtOr'S Intention to c.use or permit the Work to beax hlblted to the PUblic. Arti" shall torthw!th communIcate !O Collector and the exhibitor any and all edIIieeor /'I:quests lhat he may hlNe regarding tha prapolld .xhibitlon of lhe Work. Collector shall nol catne orp." "11 he Wor k 10 be exhlbfled to me public exc.pt upon compliance with the tI .m s 01 tht!; anlcl .

oul fbI (b) Colhtctcr st.1I not cause or pe" " " any public exhlbillon of lhe Work except wilh the consenl 01I no! reQul rea the ArUal to each Iuch .xhlbllion .(c) Artl.I'1 lailure timely to respond tD Collector's Umely nqUc. thall be deemed. walyer of Artist'srights under this article, in respecl 10 such .xhibition and stWl operate .. . cOAMnl to such exhib itionand to aU detaile thereof of which Artist a.wl h. . . . been gtvef1 Umely nodc:e. .AAnITS POS8SSION. ARTICLE EIGHT: Arttat .nd Collector mutually eo-..nent thlt Al"\lst shall hay. theright, upon .."riuen nolica and demand to Colleclor mllde not I . t . r thin 120 da.,.. prior to Ih. proposedshipping dale therefor, to poaaesalon olth . Work for . period 00110 exceed lixly (80) deys solely lor thepurpose 01 exhibition of Ihe Work 10 the public al and by a pubtrc or non-9tOnt iNitituOon, at no expensewhellloever 10 Collector. Collector shall heve the rlghl 10 ... t"factory proof 01 .utfl:eienl inaurance andprepaid lran.portaticn or Iatls'.ctory prao' of nn.nclal rnponsibil/ty there'or, Artist shall have the right10 auch poaseulon 01 the Work for one period not to excelld sixty (80) deyvery "ve (5) NON-OESTRUC110N. ARTICLE NINE: Collector eovenantJ that Collector wtll not Intentionally destroy.damage, alt.r, modify or change Ihe Work in 1liiy w.y whebOeYer.RI!'.... RS. ARTICLE TEN: Colleclor coy.nants: Ihlt n the ...,ent 01 any damage to the Work. CoUKtor ahallconsult with Artist prior 10 the commencement 01 eny retlairs or ntSloraUon and if prtlcttcabl. Artltt shallb. giy.n the opportunity 10 make IIny ntquirttd repairs or ...-slOration.RENTS. ARTICLE ElEVEN: In the eYentthal Collector become to any monies u ",ni or olhercompensation for the use 01 the Work at public exhibition, the ColtllCtor shall pay e sum equal to one-hallStrkecui one ot said manias to (Anill) (Artisr. avent U 18110rth in ARTICLE TWO h.reln) within Ihlrty (30) day. 01 ther(l18pp1 cab!e date when Collector shall become entitled to such monies.R(PRODUC110N. ARTICLE TWELVE: Artist hereby marves all wh.tao ....ef to eopy or reproducelhe Work.. Artillt shall nol unrtalON.bJy r"UM permission to reproduce the Work' n catalogues and thelika incidental to public exhlblUon of the Wort.NON-ASSIGNABIUTY. ARTICLE THIRTEEN; No rights creat.d In the Artist and for m. Artisl's benefil bythe of ,hle Agreement lhBll be assignllble by Arti l t during Ihe Artl,ra lifetime, except that nothingherein contalned 'hall be construed .. a IImilallon on ArtisI'll rights_Undar any COPyright l a' S to whichthe Work may be aubjecLNOnCE. ARTICLE FOURTEEN: Artilf and Collector mutuany covenant that there shall be pe""anenllyaliixed to the Work . NOTICE 01 the axtsl8nce 01 thia Agreemenl and that ownership, tranal,r, exhibitionend rtpl'OducUon 01 the Work a/l: subjecl he con ...n8flts "'-rein, said NOTICE 10 be In the form 01 thespecimen hereunto annexed lind made a part 01 thi, AgrHmentSlrkeOUI (a) il


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co dressed were commonly acknowledged throughout th e an world, which usually protec ts the'" collector more tha n th e artist. Siegelaub's explanatory preface clarified why, in the contextof the uprisings at Kent State and the VieO'lam War protests, a contractual approach wasconsidered more desirable than legislation. This route, Siegelaub wrote, involved "no organ-ization, no dues, no government agency, no meetings, no public registration, no nothing-just your [Le., the artist'sl will to use it."" Thus the Agreement circumvented gallery orbureaucratic intervention, serving as a self-help document in line with the ethos of anti-institutional trends of the period, such as those crystallized in, for instance, the various edi-tions of The Whole Earth Catalogue.

The Agreement was designed to thwan the collector's inordinate amoWlt of con-trol" in the an world by giving the artist a number of rights, including the right to some of theprofits from resale or from any other form of commercial exploitation of the work (e.g., re-production, rentals) ." In addition, Siegelaub and Projansky made cl ear that the contract wasalso appropriate for transfers of ownership by exchange or even gift, thereby protecting theartist paning with a work without mone tary recompense. The Agreement would be bindingon all future owners of the work (who were required to sign the legal agreement) and wouldbe in effect for the artist's lifetime. Upon the artist's death, the rights to the work would re-ven to the artist's heirs"

The most controversial aspect of the Agreement was the right of the artist to par -ticipate in, and to profit from, any increase in the work's sumptuary value. Although it ad-dressed many noneconomic rights, this aspect of the contract rapidly became the focus ofmuch harsh evaluation and criticism. Many dealers and artists felt that collectors would notbuy an if they could not control the right to use an d sell it" Further criticism concerned t heeffect of the lack of privacy on an collecting; the fact that collectors would be obliged to puttheir name on the contract meant that traditionally Wldeclared cash flowing through the anworld would be recorded. Additionally, there was the flexibility of pricing. Atone point Siege-laub suggested that in cenain instances an artist mig ht consider inflating the market valueof the anwork o n the contract, since 'obviously, the higher the figure you put in, the betterthe break the new owner is getting.""

Although Siegelaub and Projansky's timely effort capitalized on artist s' growing re-sentment of an marketing conventions, it also reconceived these conventions in a way tha tcOWltered the model of egalitarianism. Siegelaub was very precise about the physical rela-

tionship between the anwork and the Agreement, and he stressed that the Notice concern-ing Ownership, Transfer, Exhibition and Reproduction of the Work of Art should always beattached to the work' o According to his instructions, the Notice might be placed "on astretcherbar Wlder a sculp ture base o r wherever else it will be aesthetically invisible yet eas-ily findable. It should get a coat of clear polyurethane-or somethin g like i t -to protect it. Itwon't hu n to put several copies of the notice on a large work."" In other words, the Notice,which basically fWlctioned as a bill of sale, would become pa n of the work. In instanceswhere the an was immaterial a nd had no physical base, Siegelaub advised: "If your workhasno place on it for the Notice or your signature-in which case you should always use an an-cillary document which describes the work and which bears your signature and which mustalways be transferred as a pa n of the work-glue the NOTICE on the document"" TheNotice validated secondary informati on and materialized primary information. Note as wellthat the Agreement made a correlation between "Notice" and "signature," and if authorshipof the new work was linked to copyright, the Notice functioned as a document indicatingcopyright. In this transformation, the signature of the artist and its associative sign valueonce again became the primary product. In the absence not only of iconicitybut also of anykind of discernible metaphor or allusion, th e artist's signature now came to be what the worksignified. In the process, the attack carried out by conceptual an upon the cultural systemin the preced ing years was negated . Regardless of how problemat ic its form, the work onceagain entered the ma rket thro ugh the signature of the producer. Drafted to protect the rightsof the artist, the contract fWlctioned to preserve exclusive ownership of the work. ThusSiegelaub arrived at a concrete soluti on to his earlier queries of how to market ideas.

Although the Agreement, drafted to help destabilize the calcified an industry, mayhave been politically progressive in its intention , it had the opposite effect, leading conceptualan into what Uppard condemns as "the tyranny of a commodity status and market-orientation:'For the Agreement's precise limitations served to confine even work that existedonly as abstract idea or, alternately, only as widely dispersed document ation within its capi-tal relations, and thus insen ed conceptual art into the an market as a pure commodity or billof sale. The aura absen t from conceptual art was thereby reintroduced in the auratization ofthe signature . If conceptual an attacked the privileged nature o fan and made the experienceof an collecting more practicable than ever before, Siegelaub's contract ensured that one facetof the new an would not be so readily accessible-namely, the experience of ownership.

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With the success of the artists associated with him, Siegelaub gradually droppedout of the picture and became a shadow (fig. 1.1). Just as the material object of art in some in-stances gave way to ephemeT

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alberro sieglaub