| Wong Kit Yi: North Pole Futures April 12–26, 2015 K. 334 Broome Street Private preview: Sunday, April 12, 5–7pm (by invitation only) For the duration of the exhibition, Ali Wong, investment manager for Wong Kit Yi, offers intrepid collectors a chance to commission a custom-made work, which will be created by the artist this fall on a sailing expedition to the North Pole. Prospective patrons may choose three elements out of Wong’s lists: a date, a color, and a weird word. These three terms will be combined together in a photographic, sculptural, performative, or painterly manner in the Arctic. The price of each work is generated by a complex calculation that factors together weather conditions, sun cover, moon illumination, and randomized variables; this determines both the artwork price and a percentage of the sale that will be donated to a nonprofit organization of the artist’s choosing. Patrons thus become co-producers, fellow adventurers, speculative investors, and inadvertent philanthropists all at once. The exhibition features texts, objects, and time-based works. Video interviews with select experts — including an art dealer, a commodities trader, a pawnbroker, and a fishmonger — consider the nature and techniques of valuation and pricing. The exhibition also includes a publication and website wongfutures.com for contracting the artworks. There are only a limited number of contracts for sale, so don’t wait to invest in the future now. |
