Observations with a Typewriter
2010


Performed at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art's Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery in Washington, DC. (Located inside the Smithsonian American Art Museum). In conjunction with the exhibition, Lists: To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts and Other Artists' Enumerations from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. I sit at a desk in the gallery space generating lists with a typewriter.  The content of the lists are gathered through an on-the-spot observation of visitors in the gallery space that is akin to an ethnographer performing a field study.  For the performance, I typed the time that visitors entered the gallery and then noted the color of their clothing, one color per page.  This became my way of creating a text-based Color Field piece, playing on the idea of Washington, DC’s past as a nexus for the American Color Field Painting movement, which featured artists such as Kenneth Noland, Sam Gilliam, and Morris Louis.  All three of these artists had work on display in the museum at the time of my performance.


More information:
DCist Interview
Smithsonian Magazine Interview

Photos by Page Carr