Artist Need Not Be Present

This performance piece was conducted during my second year Public Critique (the stop gap assessment to the final thesis show for MFA students) in which six faculty members and a guest artist were the main panel of critics. As the week of crits progressed it was my turn on a Wednesday afternoon and I had prior set it up that I would be last to go on that day. I had had a casual meeting with the moderator, and assistant dept chair of the Public Crits for him to be the initiator of my performance in which he read a scripted letter in front of the group. I had however already left the room to meditate for about an hour in my studio and was not present for my own crit.  Along the wall of the exhibit space I installed over 60+ note cards in an Ellsworth Kelly sort of spectrum color arrangement, paper clipped to the wall with the names of most of the people I knew would be there. The moderator announced that the piece was called Artist Need Not Be Present and was not made aware that I would not be there. He read it aloud to my relief and as planned and conducted the performance for me. All guests were invited to come up to the wall, find their name and handwritten note, read it to themselves, respond to it if they wanted to and return to the wall, or keep the note. After this was announced the guests were all thanked for their being present for the critique and were told that they had the choice to leave (be dismissed) or to strike up a conversation with someone next to them. The audio as heard in the video was graciously recorded by a friend/MFA colleague of mine who recorded the entire dialogue during that performance because he had a gut notion to do so. Now… what happened during my absence was only conveyed to me by friends, colleagues, and teachers and I can share the results with you upon request. I only heard the conversation and the audio recording months later when he decided to reveal it to me.