Jenny Walton is an artist herself. What she donated to the Temporary Art Repair Shop was a failed artwork of sorts. The frame is a cheap box frame she got from a gift shop, and the contents were found during a day on the beach with the family. Jenny wasn’t happy with the aesthetic choices made in filling the box, neither was she with the box itself. Looking at the “art” box I now had in my hands made me think about what I could put in it instead, and that led to thoughts about how art is and should be presented. I decided to make her a conceptual piece, as a contrast to the sort of lame nature art piece she had handed in.

  First I just fixed the frame. Made it look less crafty and more arty by painting it white (but still with wood showing through. The I emptied it an started reconsidering the contents. Since I was going to make her a piece of conceptual art, I was thinking about what Conceptual Art is. I tried to remember the pieces I had seen in museums, books and exhibitions. Some smart member of that movement had said that conceptual art is art for the drawer, implying that a collector who already had his walls and shelves and floors full with art, could only find space for new acquisitions in his drawers. In my experience though, conceptual art is mostly presented in a box frame, not a drawer. And there it was, the definition of the piece I was making. A white wooden box frame with a text and a photograph in it.

PS. A small note to the collectors among you; you have probably already noticed that the piece I am giving away to Jenny Walton is only number 1 of a (possible) edition of 5.