Do It, volume 1
My television has been on with the sound switched off for exactly one hour, and I am wearing a pullover on my feet. I need to translate a Russian phrase, so I am waiting for a call from my father, who speaks Russian. I am ‘doing it’ the way Joseph Grigley, Erwin Wurm and Trisha Donnelly tell me to do it. Is it fun? Not really. Do I feel like an artist? Not at all. Do I feel a bit duped for following a bunch of recipes from a so-called artists’ cookbook? Um, yes.
Do It, conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist in 1993, is a constantly growing collection of artists’ instructions for making art works, to be realized by curators, museum visitors or no one at all. This book is the second edition of just one manifestation of the project, which – driven by Obrist’s by now well-known compulsion to gather, record and archive – has also taken the form of exhibitions, an Internet project and a even a television show.
Out of 168 artists’ submissions in this edition there are a few identifiable tendencies: the over-romantic notion (blow a wall down with your own breath), the rebellious statement (don’t do it) or, the most appealing proposals, those with the potential to become viable art works. In the spirit of Do It, I choose a few, eliminating those I can’t do (‘Kill Yourself’) or find excuses not to do (‘Invite a stranger into your home for breakfast’) or those that require breaking my daily routine (‘36 hours of fasting followed by a 1/2 gallon of water’). I tear a page out of the book and crumple it, listening attentively to the sound, as Christian Marclay instructs. It sounds like a crumpled paper, and now my book is missing a page. I intend to make my tights into a rucksack, following Marie-Ange Guilletminot’s instructions, but I would have to cut them, and they are pretty expensive. So much for the old Beuysian spirit of ‘everyone is an artist’.
As an exhibition concept, this participatory, contingent, variable show naturally accommodates contemporary art and cleverly confuses the traditional relationship among curators, artists and visitors. But in book form, these ideas become fixed, as the volume becomes a permanent exhibition catalogue for an exhibition that was never meant to have a permanent existence. Maybe a more appropriate format would look less like a Bible in a hotel drawer and more like a workbook, or an object that would change over time as readers complete the projects.
I take the jumper off my legs and prepare to do nothing. (Carl Andre recommends it.) My dad finally calls to read me the Russian phrase, which he translates as ‘Oh, Gib-Gib-Gibraltar’ in English. ‘Write two pages about that’, he jokes, and then we talk for a while about his pet pig and his upcoming trip to Nicaragua. I guess that’s what Do It is really about.
