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In an article published in Art Monthly in November 1996 Giorgio Sadotti reminded readers that paying others (secretary, housekeeper, nanny, driver, et al.) to represent them is a matter of course for the well-off. BE ME was an exhibition he organized at Interim Art in London in 1996. As prefigured by the title, the show was about the artist himself, who invited friends, artists, and critics to be him for a day. Some people played him; others took advantage of the opportunity to exhibit their own work.
A few years ago Sadotti travelled to New York under the self-imposed condition of not saying a single word. The result was an audio piece. He had a recording device hidden under his clothing to document the words addressed to him and the silence of his wordless response. After the trip, Sadotti sent friends and acquaintances a simple white card in the format of a business card that read:
went to America
didn’t say a word
The artist’s project in Amden also consisted of a white card with the handwritten words
THIS IS MORE
THAN YOU KNOW
printed on it. It was produced in an edition of a thousand divided between artist and curator. On 6 December 2008, Sadotti went to Amden and nailed one of the cards on the door of the hayloft in the empty barn. Although the card remained there throughout the winter, it did not take the form of an exhibition. There were no invitations; the action was not public; no reference was ever made to it. The card was read only by hikers who happened to notice it while walking by. It is this kind of unintentional, unpredictable encounter that informs Giorgio Sadotti’s oeuvre.
– Roman Kurzmeyer
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2018, ANTHONY CARO CLEMENT GREENBERG