F I V E D AY S AT F R I E Z E
Liam Tickner
Five Days at Frieze
Lecturis & Centerfold Editions
I
15/10/0 8 14:16 : 0 5
15/10/0 8 14:16 :2 2
15/10/0 8 14:52:5 3
15/10/0 8 15: 0 2:15
15/10/0 8 2 2: 0 0 :17
15/10/0 8 2 2: 0 0 :4 6
Dear Liam, You seemed to do so well. You had the serious outlook. You had the appropriate frown. You had the slow movement. You even had the seemingly multi-multidivided attention disorder as you were approached by a prospect. And most importantly, you really loved to talk about the work. And talk and talk and talk. Were it not that the name on our booth showed not your name but mine, a visitor could easily have been fooled to believe that you were the owner of Annet Gelink Gallery. While you were fooling us all by acting interested in the works in our booth and seemingly talking about the art, you were in fact doing something we might expect from an artist, but not from a gallery assistant during the most important art fair of the year. The interesting thing is that your work is all about looking, seeing and being. This thus leads me to conclude that you were not a gallerist in the booth. And looking outside, you changed into an artist. Changing the girl next door into the lead actor in a spy story. All this would normally annoy me. Not because you didn’t make a lot of sales. Not because you were just looking. Not because the photos aren’t exceptional. But by escaping my noticing one of the artists in my booth: you. You made a work without making a work, in a role of not being an artist, using a girl who wasn’t a model, who didn’t even know she was the centerpiece of a work that wasn’t a work. On top of it all you left me completely in the dark, until finally one year later you showed me this great artist book.
Amsterdam, August 14, 2013