Your Documents Please

Reception : Wednesday Nov. 3,  6 to 9 pm

Location:

Alma on Dobbin - hosted by Fine Light Inc.

601 West 26th St. 8th Floor

(between 11th Ave and West Side Hwy)

Hours Wed - Sun 12 to 6pm

The lives of people around the world are shaped by the legitimacy or illegitimacy of their status in the groups and institutions with whom they interact. As globalization proceeds and local bonds are eroded, identification documentation such as passports, credit cards, drivers' licenses and calling cards has become the physical medium in which the political, commercial, cultural and ultimately the spiritual disposition of the individual are negotiated.  As new forms and criteria of identification are produced even the nature of identity is changed.

The exhibition, “Your Documents Please,” reflects issues of identity and its documentation.

We asked participants to make an artwork about the size of a passport or smaller that functions visually or conceptually as if it were an identification document. “Documents” by more than 270 artists living in 26 countries are included. As the show has traveled, new documents by local artists have been added. 

The exhibition opened at the Museum of Arts and Crafts– Itami, Japan, in April 2008 and has travelled to alternative spaces including ZAIM artspace–Yokohama,  2B Gallery–Budapest,  Galerie Kurt im Hirsch–Berlin,  Z Gallery–Bratislava, and Galería Ajolote Arte Contemporáneo–Guadalajara. 

In keeping with the focus on documents, a letter size paper certificate with head photo of the artist, name, place of residence, country of origin as well as a photo of one of their previous art pieces and explanatory notes about the document they have made for the show is presented in a vinyl sleeve with each artwork in place of a conventional label.

A Complete list of participants and on-line catalog may be found at yourdocumentsplease.com. 

Organized by Daniel Georges and Rumi Tsuda with Alma on Dobbin.

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