Brief statement about the project and its relation to Intersections

The Infinite Exchange Gallery (IEG) seeks to give audiences access to art in their daily lives by offering an opportunity through non-monetary exchanges for art objects and experiences. The IEG creates an alternative market for art that operates in opposition to the art market. The IEG not only provides art objects to its audiences, but also offers direct interactions, collaborations and ephemeral exchanges between artists and audiences during the temporary operational gallery hours. In doing so, the IEG seeks to develop innovative relationships between artists, audiences and community.

 

The Infinite Exchange Gallery came about through the desire to create an alternative system to the traditional art market where people can gain access to art objects and experiences without being limited by financial realities. IEG is also in support of artists and arts professionals opening up spheres and sharing of their works and practices out of a spirit of exchange, generosity and a belief that art has a place in everyone’s lives. All artists represented by the IEG are currently making work in and outside of the commercial realm, with an interest in service works.

 

As co-creators, Gordon and Delos Reyes develop, curate and implement the IEG. In addition to their roles as artists and independent curators, they have also executed the IEG previously in Toronto at Nuit Blanche. It is estimated that 250,000 people attended the event in September 2007, and the IEG was operational over a period of nine hours, straight through the night. These roles have been on a volunteer basis.


Detailed description of the project including rough installation and site diagrams and / or performance plans
IEG plans to serve the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) neighborhood. The festival will be closing down the street, to present an art street fair. Spaces along this street will be open late for the event including MACLA, Works/San Jose, Anno Domini, San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles and Space 47. The community will be directly involved as participants of the art exchange. The twenty artists being represented at the IEG will be involved through presenting their work, explaining the exchanging and participating in it with the audience. As curators, Gordon and Delos Reyes will be involved throughout the event assisting both the artists and participants as needed. In addition, they will be documenting the event through photography and video.

 

The participating artists and art collectives in this years IEG are Hideous Beast collective (Chicago), Christie Hudson (Portland), Lynn Kirby (San Francisco), Robin Lambert (Calgary), Amber Landgraff (Toronto), Wednesday Lupypciw   (Calgary), Barbara Meneley (Regina),  Ashley Neese (Portland), Eric Nordstrom (Portland), Kerri-Lynn Reeves (Winnipeg), Brion Nuda Rosch (San Francisco), Amy Steele (Portland), Elena Sofia Tejada Herrera (Peru), Sara Thacher (San Francisco),  Turner Prize collective (Regina), Gary Wiseman (Portland).

 

Some of the upcoming IEG projects which seek to develop new audience relationships include:

1.       Move

A spontaneous movement exchange: Participants spin a wheel which suggests a movement/dance idea.  Previous movement exchanges will be shared on an ipod with participants to help inspire their own movement. Participation will be documented with video and uploaded to the web to view what was created. 

2.       Contractual Exchanges

Design and distribution of step-by-step booklet guides, providing in-depth instructions for producing a variety of events, such as Mini Movie Fest, Piñata Party, dorkbot303 Interactive Artist Series.  Those who take a booklet enter a contractual agreement to coordinate and execute the events, or contribute a guide to the series. This contract will be made public through strategies including public announcement at the event as the contract is being presented; photographic documentation (photo, video) of the signing and completion of the agreement; a website will be dedicated to the project.  

  1. Getting Closer Everyday

Distribution of 100 handmade books, each with a printed introduction and 100 blank pages. The cover page states, “write down one things you are grateful for each day (or as often as you can remember)”. Books are offered in exchange for on the spot gratitude lists and conversations about gratitude. After the event the lists

and conversation notes will be combined and made into a limited edition gratitude book that will available on a dedicated website.

  1. Dreammakers
    Interviewed participants will be asked to describe a vivid sense memory or image from a dream that they have had. Transcriptions of these interviews are then used to recreate the dream-image with propos and photography. The goal is not to create an accurate representation of the dream-image, but to explore the slippages and shifts that occur through this process of describing that which is not very salient or easily pinned down by language, and our subsequent reinterpretation of these descriptions. Photographs will be mailed directly to participants. Documentation will be produced in the form of a website and an archive of images and texts.
  2. Sincerely Yours II
    The artist will write letters to participants, or to other people on behalf of the participants, in exchange for them signing a promissory note stating they will perform a good deed. The good deed and the letter are both negotiated on site.  A portable typewriter will be used to offer services including: taking a dictated letter; helping to write the participant a letter 'home', sending the participant a postcard sometime over the next year; sending a different third party a letter/card at an agreed upon date. In exchange for this service, the participant will sign a promissory note detailing some future action they will take, for example, picking up garbage on the street.

The resources of the IEG are based primarily on volunteer support as well as the dedication and personal investments of the artists and curators who make up the IEG. What is needed to successfully complete an installment of the IEG is:

1.     A publication designed and printed for the event, highlighting all of the works and participating artists

2.     Artworks made by the artists

3.     Press releases to be sent out

4.     The IEG website being kept up to date

5.     Onsite set-up the day of, including the following equipment: tables; chairs; lighting; extension cords for electricty and installation of the gallery banners, artwork and publication

 

‘Diagram A’ presents a schematic of the general layout desired. Setup of the IEG in San Jose will be very similar to the last installment in Toronto. This year, there are more artists participating, and will therefore require more space and equipment. However, the images below provide an example of the general setup:

 

 

Diagram A


 

 

All of this will be done by the curators and artists who volunteer their time and resources to make the IEG a reality. All of this is done on a volunteer basis. Financial resources are needed to help subsidize the cost of the artwork production, publication printing, travel fees for artists and Jennifer Delos Reyes.

Budget

Organization’s Popular Name: Infinite Exchange Gallery           

Fiscal Year ends (month): December 08

 

 

PROJECT EXPENSES (cash only)

Amount

Notes Index

a., b., c., etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Artist Fees

$ 2000

a

 

 

 

Project Administration

$ 1000

b

 

 

 

Marketing & Promotion

$ 1292.29

c

 

 

 

Travel & Transportation

$ 500

d

 

 

 

Accommodations

$ 0

e

 

 

 

Materials & Supplies

$ 100

f

 

 

Total Project Costs

$ 6141.79

   

 

 

 

PROJECT REVENUES (cash only)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Project Grant Requested

$ 5000

   

 

 

Other Funds for This Project (specify in Budget Notes)

$ 1000

g

 

 

Total Project Revenues

$ 0

   

 

OVERALL FINANCIAL INFORMATION ON ORGANIZATION:

Total Organization Revenues for the Fiscal Year in which Project will occur:  $ 0

Total Organization Expenses for the Fiscal Year in which Project will occur:  $ 6141.79

Total Organization Revenue for the most recently completed Fiscal Year:  $ 0

Total Organization Expenses for the most recently completed Fiscal Year:  $ 4400

 

Project budget notes

Infinite Exchange Gallery

 

a)       Artist Fees: $100 stipend per artist, for twenty artists. This stipend will be used to produce the artworks for IEG.

b)      Project Administration: $500 per curator. This fee will pay the curators for their time and effort in creating, preparing and implementing the IEG, both offsite beforehand and during the event.

c)       Marketing & Promotion: (PSPrint, Sterling Printers)

      4 banners from DPI                                                                   @ 271.25 with tax.

      1000 business cards                                                                    @ $92.20 with tax

4x6 postcards invite                                                                    @ $167.84 with tax

Postage for mailing 50% of postcards (@ $.41 each)                     $210                            

100 color posters from Staples, legal size (@.74 with tax)               $74.00                          

Newspaper catalog 12 page all black and white                             $277

Newspaper catalog cover and insert 4 page of color                     $125

Tax and shipping of newspaper catalog $75

d)      Travel & Transportation: Airfare for Jennifer Delos Reyes from Canada to the US on Air Canada.

e)       Accommodations: In kind, San Jose ICA has offered accommodations for Jennifer Delos Reyes, and the artists will be responsible for their own arrangements.

f)        Materials & Supplies: various supplies such as tape, string, pens, water and snacks for the artists and curators.

g)       Annual out of pocket contribution to IEG from Lori Gordon and Jen Delos Reyes.

 

CV or bio or link

The Infinite Exchange Gallery was founded and is currently operated by Lori Gordon and Jennifer Delos Reyes. They have been collaborating on various projects, since meeting at a residency program in New York at The Kitchen in 2006. These include Come Together and You Can Have It All: New York. Both artists are interested in projects that investigate relational aesthetics, gift economies and activities of the everyday. They are founders of the Little Red Hen Collective. Visit www.infiniteexchangegallery.com

Gordon received her MFA at the California College of the Arts. She is a nominee of the San Francisco MOMA’s SECA Award and the recipient of a Murphy Cadogan Fellowship from the San Francisco Foundation. Exhibition venues include Richmond Arts Center, San Jose Museum of Art, Mission17, Southern Exposure, Temescal Amity Works, RockPaperScissors and The Kitchen (NYC). Gordon is the co-founder of You Can Have It All. She recently chaired a panel on emerging Social Practices within the United States, and curated the exhibition How Fast your World Is Changing at Ampersand Arts International. This year she will participate in the Talking Arts series at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, where she will provide portfolio reviews to artists, and The Readers for ArtCity Festival for Art, Design and Architecture in Calgary. Visit www.lorigordon.com

Delos Reyes will be an adjunct professor of art at Portland State University in the Fall, where she will teach in the MFA Social Practice program. She holds an MFA from the University of Regina, where she coordinated the conference Open Engagement, an event focused on 'art after aesthetic distance' for her final thesis project. She has exhibited videos, installations, and site-specific participatory work across North America. She has received several awards and grants including a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Masters Grant. Visit www.jendelosreyes.com

CV documents attached below.








Links to online examples of no more than 5 past works.

1.       Infinite Exchange Gallery, 2007 Toronto
www.infiniteexchangegallery.com
IEG knows the value of art and believes that everyone should have access to it in their daily lives. Presenting works and services in exchange for non-monetary trades, artists determine what they feel the value of their work is, and what they want in exchange for it. This agreement ensures the cooperative collaboration that manifests between the artists, gallery representatives and the buyer. It is functioning outside of the art market constraints. No work in the IEG has a monetary value. The viewers are thereby invited to swap and potentially even haggle in exchange for what they want.

 

2.       Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

www.lorigordon.com/ytt
Participants shared their thoughts on yesterday, today and tomorrow. Residents of the Bay Area were invited to interact with this audio project, listening to my thoughts and then leaving recorded messages of their own.

 

3.       Living proof Summer Tour (in conjunction with Red76 at The Kitchen, New York)
www.lorigordon.com/livingproof.htm
Neighborhood maps created by local residents of their favorite locations for a self-guided tour of Chelsea, NY.

 

4.       Kiss It Goodbye (in conjunction with Art on BART)
www.lorigordon.com/kig.htm
Spent time talking with strangers on the BART, discussing their personal concerns. Once the conversation was over, I provided them with the tools necessary to write it down, kiss it goodbye and have it shredded.

5.       Knitting Sittings
www.lorigordon.com/knitting.htm
Neighborhood maps created by local residents of their favorite locations for a self-guided tour of Chelsea, NY.