Cleaner (a story)    (1997)

Cleaner (a story)    (1997)

Ink on broken formica veneered plywood
28cm x 38cm x 1cm

♦

The handwritten text inscribed into the panel reads:
You know the way that contemporary art fans love to tell stories about the cleaning staff at this museum or that gallery, who accidentally threw away some top artist’s work thinking that it was a bit of rubbish.
And we roll our eyes and tell our anecdote about this really interesting very new work ( a scatter piece, a ready-made, a process piece,…..) which might look like a little piece of junk but was actually made by this very happening artist; but the cleaners threw it away,……not realising its value,…….. as if it was trash.
Well, I tried to find some of these cleaners who had unwittingly scrapped art works over the last five years in the major museums and galleries around the world.
I wondered if something could arise from this situation.
As a group we got together and they came up with something really wonderful. We had been talking a lot about the way things look and they became really interested in certain kinds of design; designing things that they really wanted to see.
They chose to focus on a design for horses to wear and showed me how, onto the saddle where the rider would go, they would add a beautiful large dorsal fin.

♦

Related works:

A Hostile Environment   (2019)
Adaptation  (2013)
Corner  (2007)
Cleaner (a story)    (1997)
Inverter (Clearance Sale)   (1999)
Longshore drift, early detroit techno and other processes of erosion    (2006)  
Meetings of people with stammers to describe a fire    (1999 – ongoing)
New Wing.   A Rehearsal for a Faulty Projector   (2011)
Product Recall     (1994)
Sowmat    (2007)
We are Sorry    (July 9, 2013)
Yet    (2005)