/Gedankenaustausch./ Hello all… For me, the question, how I relate to “selling” is an important issue of my work. Furthermore the topic of “sales” is given by the fact that we show up at a selling platform. We are at an artfair, not at a public gallery! For me it seems, we can´t avoid taking position to that point:

How do we relate to selling our work? What is the price for it? Is it money? Or is it something else? And the questions behind >>> Which is the value of our work? For us? For others? Can it be named? Can it be quantified? And the question behind >>> Which is the value of art? For us? For others? Can it be named? Is it measurable? And still behind the main question, namely >>> Which is the sense of our doing? And how is it related to others?

For me the main interest in the “escalating prices idea” was to create a new form of economic collaboration, where all participants benefit from the economic success of the others. It is a co-creative form of generating value, where the buyers would become stakeholders of our project.

Meanwhile I think, it is not this kind of value, diaries wants to emphasize. I think, it is the project itself, “as a whole”, our doing, that is exposed. So, what we do at Helsinki is “selling” our doing, not the individual sheets. As a consequence it would be okay for me, not to sell the works at all. Even more… This “Not-for-sale-position” could be a form of generating value. Maybe even another kind of value, that is hard to translate into terms of money. I am interested in this kind of value. And I ask myself, how it could be implemented in our money based system.

Very funny in this context, that in english you “pay” attention. As if “attention” was another currency, alternative to the currency of money! Meanwhile in german it is something, money can´t buy. It´s a present. We say –”Ich schenke Dir meine Aufmerksamkeit”…

I send you the work of yesterday as an illustration for my process and thank you all for the present of your attention.

:-)

Best,
K.