The temporary occupation of space to confront powerful institutions has been on my mind as the Occupy Wall Street movement stretches into its tenth day and as I learn of MoMA’s prohibition of Fred Forest’s work “Oeuvre Invisible” last Friday, September 23, and the creation of a new work “The Conversation.” While undoubtedly different in the violence, scale, and media coverage of the events, Occupy Wall Street and Oeuvre Invisible draw attention to the inequalities and machinations of the market through the temporary and insurrectionary claiming of space.
The protestors at Wall Street condemn the increasing concentration of wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people and the precarious existence of the other 99%. They have set up camp in Zucotti Park, and a patchwork network of sleeping pads, hand-written signs, and strewn belongings demarcate the space as communal. The ad-hoc aesthetics seem to visualize the very precariousness. In a recent note on the Occupy Wall Street website, Noam Chomsky writes, “They [Wall Street] also carry out these ugly activities with almost complete impunity—not too big to fail, but also ‘too big to jail.’” The protestors, on the other hand, are too small not to jail, and police have responded, arresting (as well as pepper spraying and beating) about 100 protestors. But the sentiments of an outraged population cannot be extinguished.
Fred Forest’s original project consisted of demarcating a square meter through measurement and then occupying this space through ultra-sonic sound emitters, and he had planned to insert this temporary, invisible piece throughout the MoMA. The work was an homage to Pierre Restany, the French art critics and longtime support of Forest, and relates to a series of actions dating back to at least 1977, when Forest purchased land at the border of France and Switzerland and sought to re-sell the “Artistic Square Meter” of property as an illustration of speculation in the art market. In recent years, Forest has written a theory of the “invisible-system-work,” suggesting that works of art will become immaterial force fields of relations. The project for the MoMA was therefore an insurrectionary insertion of an invisible work, which the museum immediately prohibited. Upon arriving with his group of volunteers at 4pm, Forest was greeted by three security agents who prohibited any performance and threatened to call the NY police. A twenty-minute conversation (documentation by Biennale Project) between Forest and the guards ensued about freedom of expression within the museum, but the MoMA only exhibits acquired or borrowed works, that is works that have already participated in the market being protested sixty blocks further south. After being trailed by security guards until leaving the building and area, Forest declared the creation of a new work “The Conversation.”
A discussion between Fred Forest and Holly Crawford, moderated by Stephanie Jeanjean, will take place Sept. 29, 2011, at 7pm at the AC Institute, NYC. For more info.
A version of this was published by On-Verge and the re-posted on the Occupenial site.
(Photos: signs in Zucotti Park by Amelia Marzec, Forest in discussion with museum security courtesy of the artist, arrest and clash courtesy of pweiskel08 on Flickr)
