Crank - collaborative performance staged at number of social sculpture events

Collaborative Performance with American artists Matthew Bakkon and Lilah Freedland at Scope Art Fair and Art Basel Miami, 1st-4th December 2005

Bakkon, Freedland, Smith were jointly awarded the 2005 Scope Foundation/Scope Art Fair Miami grant for performance art. Scope Foundation/Scope Art Fair is committed to supporting emerging artists through grants, awards and acquisitions. It has described its commitment to performance art as “serving to dispense with the grid-like setting of an art fair through a fusion of drama, dance and performance happenings”.

Taking this as a starting point together with Nicolas Bourriard’s ideas of ‘relational aesthetics’ (English translation 2002), the researcher and his collaborators staged a number of social sculpture events that depended on the participation of others.

Thus the artists and participants made the works and the event ‘consumed’ it. Two factors affected the specifics of the social sculptures that were made. The first was the botanical setting of the art fair which through tree and other plantings influenced aspects of the scale of the social sculptures and offered opportunities for concealment and surprise. The second was the nature of the art fair as a particular type of event with particular kinds of participants who are frequently browsing, shopping, socialising, holding conversations or casually observing what is taking place around them. There the social sculptures took place in an already socialised space rather than an independent and private space.

The 2005 Scope Art Fair coincided with the 4th Art Basel Miami in December 2005 which provided a showcase for 195 galleries from across the world and a range of other platforms for viewing, discussing and promoting contemporary art practice.