دیوید همونز: فروش توپ برفی

Drawing on unpublished documents and oral histories, an illustrated examination of an iconic artwork of an artist who has made a lifework of tactical evasion. One wintry day in 1983, alongside other street sellers in the East Village, David Hammons peddled snowballs of various sizes. He had neatly laid them out in graduated rows and spent the day acting as obliging salesman. He called the evanescent and unannounced street action Bliz-aard Ball Sale , thus inscribing it into a body of work that, from the late 1960s to the present, has used a lexicon of ephemeral actions and self-consciously black" materials to comment on the nature of the artwork, the art world, and race in America.And although Bliz-aard Ball Sale has been frequently cited and is increasingly influential, it has long been known only through a mix of eyewitness rumors and a handful of photographs. Its details were as elusive as the artist himself; even its exact date was unrecorded.Like so much of the artist's work, it was conceived, it seems, to slip between our fingersto trouble the grasp of the market, as much as of history and knowability. In this engaging study, Elena Filipovic collects a vast oral history of the ephemeral action, uncovering rare images and documents, and giving us singular insight into an artist who made an art of making himself difficult to find. And through it, she reveals Bliz-aard Ball Sale to be the backbone of a radical artistic oeuvre that transforms such notions as art, commodity, performance, and even race into categories that shift and dissolve, much like slowly melting snowballs. "One wintry day in 1983, alongside other street sellers in the East Village, David Hammons peddled snowballs of various sizes. He had neatly laid them out in graduated rows and spent the day acting as obliging salesman. He called the evanescent and unannounced street action 'Bliz-aard Ball Sale', thus inscribing it into a body of work that, from the late 1960s to the present, has used a lexicon of ephemeral actions and self-consciously black materials to comment on the nature of the artwork, the art world, and race in America. And although 'Bliz-aard Ball Sale' has been frequently cited and is increasingly influential, it has long been known only through a mix of eyewitness rumors and a handful of photographs. Its details were as elusive as the artist himself; even its exact date was unrecorded. Like so much of the artist's work, it was conceived, it seems, to slip between our fingers -- to trouble the grasp of the market, as much as of history and knowability. In this study, Elena Filipovic collects a vast oral history of the ephemeral action, uncovering rare images and documents, and giving us singular insight into an artist who made an art of making himself difficult to find."-- Quatrième de couverture One wintry day in 1983, alongside other street sellers in the East Village, David Hammons peddled snowballs of various sizes. He had neatly laid them out in graduated rows and spent the day acting as obliging salesman. He called the evanescent and unannounced street action 'Bliz-aard Ball Sale', thus inscribing it into a body of work that, from the late 1960s to the present, has used a lexicon of ephemeral actions and self-consciously black materials to comment on the nature of the artwork, the art world, and race in America. And although 'Bliz-aard Ball Sale' has been frequently cited and is increasingly influential, it has long been known only through a mix of eyewitness rumors and a handful of photographs. Its details were as elusive as the artist himself; even its exact date was unrecorded. Like so much of the artist's work, it was conceived, it seems, to slip between our fingers -- to trouble the grasp of the market, as much as of history and knowability.0In this study, Elena Filipovic collects a vast oral history of the ephemeral action, uncovering rare images and documents, and giving us singular insight into an artist who made an art of making himself difficult to find Contents 12 Part 1: What We Know 14 The Images 14 The Myth 16 Part 2: The Evasions of David Hammons 35 Where He’s From 35 Making a Stereotype Literal 39 Outside 42 The Bad Guy 43 Exit 46 Part 3: Stalking Bliz-aard Ball Sale 66 A Blizzard 66 The Daringness of the Act 69 Fugitive Evidence 74 Temporary Business Ventures 77 The Colour of Money 80 As Black as Their Art is White 91 Like Dirt to a Snowball 96 Black Skin, White Cubes 101 Colour Theory 103 Ice and Dust and Rumours 122 The Last Snowball 125 What It Is 138 Endnotes 142