++++ 9 April 2002 For almost a year the preparations for the fourth European biennial for the contemporary art, Manifesta, have been busily under way in Frankfurt. From one thousand applications, three international curators selected 70 participants. Even before the young biennial opens its doors at various venues in the metropolis on the River Main at the end of May, one artist has already left the enterprise with a fistful of money in his pocket.
Christoph Büchel sold his participation rights in Manifesta 4 at the internet auctioneers, eBay. Instead of him, the New York artist, Sal Randolph, is coming to Frankfurt. This coming Tuesday she is having first talks with the organizers.
Market value of participation rights in an exhibition
When the three curators from Sofia, Paris and Barcelona invited the 35-year-old Swiss conceptual artist, Christoph Büchel, to participate in Frankfurt, they perhaps thought that he would once again set up or one of his chaotic rooms in which he stages the life of fictitious users as a prison of their psychic compulsions. But the openness with which the 70 international artists were invited to think out something as new as possible for the Frankfurt Manifesta stimulated Christoph Büchel to have an unusual idea. Even before he began tediously collecting objects and arranging them in an artistic way, he offered his invitation on the market to the highest bidder. That with this action he supported the overall project Manifesta rather than harming it was predictable because who would have more interest in his offer than another artist?
Büchel found out the market value of his participation rights at the heart of the German financial world. He offered the admission ticket to probably the most important exhibition for young artists in Europe. He finally pocketed the highest bid of fifteen thousand dollars. Normally, prices rise only once an exhibition has finished. Here a contemporary artist has exploited, adapted and exposed the mechanisms of competition which also rule the art market by selling the mere opportunity to present an art work in the public space just like a highly priced art work.
Mechanisms of a free market economy
Art and commerce is a topic this spring at exhibitions in Hamburg and Vienna. In a uniquely subversive, but also dangerous way, Christoph Büchel has succeeded in Frankfurt in bringing both into congruity with each other. It is unique because no second artist will copy this concept without making himself look ridiculous in the art scene. It is dangerous because Büchel himself well never again be invited to an exhibition without the organizers having to fear that his contribution will only be able to be seen on his bank account, but not by the public.
As the General Co-ordinator for Manifesta 4, Martin Fritz, emphasized to FAZ.NET in Frankfurt, Büchel's project was carried out in full agreement with the curators. The curators played his game which allows an unknown artist to participate in the exhibition. They made it clear that the money paid was part of the artistic concept and therefore the artist’s property, not that of the organizers. Nevertheless, the three women curators have reserved a veto right with regard to the new participant, who turns out to be a woman artist.
The negotiations begin this Tuesday. Sal Randolph, the Harvard graduate and concept artist who has bought the rights, initiated a project which has just started in New York called The Free World Project. There is some excitement about what kind of deal she will strike with Manifesta 4.