We do not make art for the public. We are the public that makes art. Excerpt from Eastside Projects User’s Manual: Draft 5, 2012
INSTRUCTIONS
Unless installing your work is very obvious, always send instructions. If you want a work shown on a plinth / hung at a certain height – specify this. Don’t take it for granted that anyone will know which way up it goes. Instructions can run from a few words to many pages. Either way, keep it concise, clear, sequential.
Things to think about: Can someone else install your work? Can it be done by instruction? Can only you install your work? What will happen when you die? Is there a trusted number of technicians in the world that can install your work? Name them. Does your work incorporate replaceable readymades? What happens when these are no longer available? Can they be updated? Does your work need to get dismantled and re-assembled each time it is shown? Does this matter? Does it need specific materials when it gets re-assembled? Does the work develop a life of its own – how much do you have to control it? There are no right and wrong answers for this – the work will dictate it – but send it out into the world prepared for the future.
EQUIPMENT
Does your work involve equipment? Think about including this with the work when you sell it – a specific monitor?
A 16mm projector?
EDITIONS
Things you can edition: prints, photographs, casts, performances, films.
If you are making an edition, think carefully about what you want. You cannot change the parameters of the edition later. Smaller editions are more valuable – between 3 and 5 is a kind of standard. Two APs (artist’s proofs) are generally acceptable. In the market, a numbered edition is usually more valuable than an artist’s proof. One very famous film was sold in an edition of 6 – quite costly they were too. The artist later decided to release the film, so you could buy it for £10. Some people think these things are contradictory, but they are not. Of course they are different – the original 6 own the work as an artwork. They have the right to screen it publicly, exhibit it, and they can sell it as an artwork.
If editioning a performance, what is being editioned? – the right to perform it? Where? By instruction? Any special audio/video/composition that needs to go with it? Does someone in particular or a certain kind of person need to perform it? Be as clear as possible about everything. Equally, if something can never be editioned, it is always worth putting this on any paperwork: ‘original’ usually does the trick.