Meeting of the Board, Bill Burns, (after Brion Gysin, William Burroughs and Ian Sommerville, circa 1957)
These pictures are from my installations at Hypolite, Helsinki, MASS MoCA, North Adams, Mulherin+Pollard, New York and MKG127 in Toronto. The carvings on the logs are the names of artworld celebrities both known and unknown to me. The names are derived from lists of important art world luminaries published in art magazines. The logs come with custom canvas bags, pictured hanging on the wall. The photograph is called “The Meeting of the Board”. It is produced after a passage in “Thee Films” by William Burroughs, Brion Gysin and Ian Somerville (circa 1957). My version is a picture of my friends discussing my artworld celebrity logs. The third element is a set of work embroidered artworld celebrity work gloves and a testing machine. The fourth element is a series of watercolours. These are part of an ongoing autobiography. They describe my adventures with critics, curators and collectors in the artworld. This project is ongoing.
The project now includes electronic billboards presented in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. These billboards presented on billboards in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver were sponsored by MOCA Toronto. They read: Jeff Wall Watch Over Us; Vasif Kortun Protegez Nous; Beatrix Ruf Pray for Us; Hou Hanru Hear Us. The enormous blllboards were presented on freeways throughout the three cities. The texts are in English, French, Punjabi, Chinese and Portuguese.
