THE
ACTIONS OF FRED FOREST
22
MEDIA
EXPERIMENT / EVENT
THE
ARTISTIC SQUARE METER
MEDIA
COVERAGE (print, radio, T.V.), ESPACE CARDIN-HÔTEL LE CRILLON,
PARIS
MARCH–OCTOBER 1977
An
ingenious parody of the speculative practices common to both the
real estate and art markets, this major example of tactical “information
art” relies on the subversive effect of “parasitical”
pieces of information introduced into the echo chamber of the mass
media for the purpose of playing off—and hence exposing—the
internal contradictions of centers of power/rackets that rely on
the hording and control of information in a particular field. The
artist creates an authentic real estate company for the purpose
of promoting square meter lots—all part of a remote tract
of land in the countryside near the Franco-Swiss border—that
are officially designated as “artistic” square meters
in papers filed at the local title office. He then places “for
sale” ads in several prominent national and international
publications and announces that the first of the “artistic”
square meters is to be auctioned off at Le Crillon. The artist is
interrogated at police headquarters at the request of the Interior
Ministry, which later intervenes to block the public sale on the
grounds of false advertising and suspected real estate fraud. The
artistic square meter of land is replaced at the last minute with
a “non-artistic” square meter of fabric. The auction
proceeds and the mundane cloth fetches a high price, no doubt driven
up by the publicity the whole affair has generated—a denouement
that prompts the art critic Pierre Restany to formally declare that
the non-artistic square meter was indeed a true work of art!
^ |