Are you still putting off spring cleaning this year? Clean out your apartment and put your souvenirs to good use by donating them to Martha Rosler’s Meta-Monumental Garage Sale.
Though the installation doesn’t premiere until November 17-30, Rosler is on the hunt this month for all of your cast offs, bric-a-brac, no-longer-wanted objects and odd items. This can include, but is certainly not limited to, art (the good, the bad, and the ugly), clothing, costumes, literature, propaganda, posters, obsolete textbooks, jewelry, glossy magazines, sports equipment and appliances that may or may not be residing under a blanket of dust somewhere in your basement. Remember to not bring any food, perishable items, liquids, weapons, or toxic and/or hazardous materials, as they will not be accepted.
Fair Trade Garage Sale. Basel’s Museum of Cultural History for the Art Parcours during Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland, 2010.
Rosler’s upcoming atypical exhibition will allow visitors to browse, haggle, and buy with the artist in the flesh. But, unlike a conventional garage sale, this one will take place at the Museum of Modern Art (just a bit fancier than your neighbor’s sidewalk, no?). Describing this sequence of sales as “well traveled” is an understatement, considering their past visits to Barcelona, Dublin, Stockholm, and London, to name just a few.
Monumental Garage Sale. University of California, San Diego, USA, 1973.
The upcoming MoMA show will feature some of the very components used during the series’ 1973 original debut in San Diego to give museum-goers a taste of the history behind the sales–specifically the slide show, which consists of continuously streaming snapshots of an exemplary suburban white American family, and the audio track, which offers an interpretation of the role that commodities play in regards to suburban life. In addition, photographs of previous visitors taken by the artist herself and select “merchandise” that survived the wear-and-tear of past sales will be integrated into the installation.
For the chance to have your novelties featured in Rosler’s extravagant sale, swing by MoMA on select weekends throughout the month of June.
Garage Sale. Nederlands Foto Instituut, Rotterdam, Holland, 2000.
Images courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art.
