Napkin Ring + James Hannaham Story. Click to read the story.

Above, and after the jump, the latest additions to our Significant Objects Owners Photo Pool: Two from the recent Epistolary Week series.

Heart-Shaped Candle + Terese Svoboda Story. Click to read the story.

11x14; edition of 500: $50!

UPDATE: This sale has been extended until Tuesday at 11:59 pm.

Technically, I guess you can save 20% on any 20X200 order of $50 or more, but you’ll feel good about yourself for buying one of the ones created for us, because proceeds go to Girls Write Now. Concise details:

Enter code RIDONK at checkout for 20% off your order of $50 or more, now through Sunday @ noon.

Although, when I think about it, you probably would feel better about that if you just paid full price.

Whatever.

Your call.

Be sure to check out Ben’s book, What He’s Poised To Do, and the related site, Letters With Character.

???

We already know, thanks to this project, that people will buy a near-worthless doodad for much more than its free-market value after it’s given a completely invented narrative. But how important is the identity of the narrative-maker? In other words: Would Significant Objects still sell if we didn’t tell you who our authors are?

Here’s why I ask.

E pointed out to me an interesting post by gallerist and art blogger Edward Winkleman, as it mentions Significant Objects. I’ll get to that part in a second, but first the meat of his post. It’s a follow-up to an earlier Winkleman item in which he floated the idea of “a group exhibition of strong (but not undeniably recognizable) work by good artists, but with absolutely no names attached. The Anonymous Show.”

I’m talking no signatures anywhere on the work, no names on the checklist, no way for the collector to learn who made the work. The artist would of course receive payment for any sold work, but that’s all. No press, a contract stipulating they can’t add the show to their resume, nothing but the Art… The central question of the experiment being, of course: Is it about the art (for both the artist and the collector) or is it about name recognition, branding, prestige, etc. etc.?

Check his post for the feedback; it’s an interesting discussion. But actually, do that later, stick with me for now. In the follow-up post I read yesterday, Winkleman considers a complication: “the value of narrative.” Turns out that David Carson hipped him to Significant Objects, as well as this Q&A about the project conducted by Adweek’s Rebecca Cullers. Winkleman writes:

What interested me in this story, in relationship to The Anonymous Show idea, is finding some way to acknowledge the part narrative clearly plays in imparting value to art works. (And I believe it does : Had the Mona Lisa never been stolen, would it be as famous/valuable, or just another among Da Vinci’s works?)

Therefore, to address both the original goal, the quality issue, and the narrative issue, I began to wonder if the show might not be improved upon by noting that anyone who purchased a work from the show would be told who its author was (complete with bio and full narrative) in two years time. At that time, if the collector wished, the artwork would be bought back by the gallery for the same price. No questions asked.

All very interesting!

?!?

And of course like everything else it made me think about …  Significant Objects! More than one member of this project’s virtual peanut gallery has bleated the allegation that our more famous contributors have a built-in advantage when it comes to auction time; in other words, these skeptics suggest, the identity of the author is more important than the story s/he creates. It’s certainly true that S.O. has many esteemed contributors — toppers of sales charts, recipients of coveted & prestigious awards, etc., etc. Still and all, our data shows that it simply isn’t so that author fame dictates sales prices; we’ve determined that it’s a secondary factor at best. While all our contributors have of course been gifted storytellers, many have never published a book, let alone a best-seller. Bottom line: the data simply do not show any consistent correlation between author fame and final sales price.

But I’m digressing. The point is, we’ve speculated before that in addition to the narratives created by our amazing contributors, our buyers are also attracted to the narrative of Significant Objects itself. My guess about Winkleman’s theoretical Anonymous Show is that the power of narrative would work in its favor in a similar way: People would buy the work simply to tell other people that they bought something at the Anonymous Show. (This would obviously be even more true if Winkleman (or whoever) did a good job on the “name recognition, branding, prestige, etc. etc.” of the Anonymous Show itself, but that’s another … story.)

!?!

I’m not sure if Picasso’s famous line about good artists borrowing and great ones stealing applies to curators or not, but I’m tempted to borrow or steal Winkleman’s notion and organize an Anonymous Week here on Significant Objects. We did pretty well selling a Mystery Object, so perhaps Mystery Authors would be another logical wrinkle in our ongoing experimentation. We could reveal the names of the authors later, I suppose — but I don’t like the idea of offering anybody their money back!

What do you think, readers? Would we get bids on object/stories if we declined to disclose the name of the Significance-maker?

Two trivial notes to round this off. 1) I once interviewed Winkleman for a Consumed that dealt in part with the gallery world. He’s a keen and lucid observer that scene, and if it interests you at all I recommend his blog. 2) I’ve never had occasion to speak with David Carson, but I did have this memorable semi-encounter with him a while back.

!!!

Now you know. My apologies for falling prey to a particularly pointless viral meme roflblah.

As of 8:20 pm eastern, or so, Sunday.

Here’s where things stand as of… well, as of when I took this screen grab. These are the last five auctions of S.O. v3, proceeds to Girls Write Now.

Own a piece of this project, and support a great cause. If you don’t, you’ll regret it for the rest of your  life. Just saying.

Our shop is open.

11x14; edition of 500: $50!

I teased this last week — and now it’s here! We’re really excited to announce the latest S.O. team-up, resulting in thoroughly affordable art, and another way to support v3 beneficiary Girls Write Now.

The prints you see on this page are available in limited editions from 20×200, Jen Bekman’s online project that sells a dazzling array of prints from an impressive roster of artists, all priced to meet a mission of making art available to all.

16x20; edition of 20: $200!

The artist is Kate Bingaman-Burt, whose delightful book Obsessive Consumption was just published, and whose combination of thoughtfulness about consumer behavior and mad drawing skills make her our perfect match.

All these prints are created using archival pigment inks on 100% cotton rag paper with a matte finish.

8x10; edition of 200: $20!

Proceeds from the sale of these prints will benefit Girls Write Now, contributing to Significant Object’s grand total donation.

Girls Write Now provides guidance, support, and opportunities for New York City’s underserved or at-risk high school girls, enabling them to develop their creative, independent voices, explore careers in professional writing, and learn how to make healthy choices in school, career and life.

What are you waiting for? Here’s the link again.

Three pieces of exciting news:

1. Our friends over at Electric Literature dropped a line to let us know they have created “mini-book of our Significant Objects on the iPhone. It’s free content, and the app is free.” How cool is that? Follow this link to get the free E.L./S.O.  iPhone app from iTunes. And since I don’t have an iPhone, tell me all about it!

2. The Rabbit Candle + Neil LaBute Story from v2 will be part of a real-live art show! “Los Angeles, I’m Yours,” according to the site, “takes the best artists and designers from the Los Angeles area and brings them together into what we’re calling an “Art Market”, basically a gallery show formatted like a space you’d find in the Rose Bowl Flea Market.” A perfect place for Significant Objects to make its art world debut! The show starts April 24, details here. (Thanks here to Ted & Angie of Poketo for reaching out to us.)

3. And finally: With yesterday’s auction (Homies Figurines + Ron Currie Jr. Story, part of our Paola Antonelli/Core77 mega team up), we passed the $1,000 mark on the amount we’ll be forking over to Girls Write Now. Pretty exciting eh? Thank you readers and bidders! Keep helping us spread the word…. (And really, the “Crumpter” + Matt Brown Story and Materials is an insane bargain as I type this.)

Oh and finally:Don’t forget, we’ll have news of our collaboration with Kate Bingaman-Burt and 20×200 very soon.

]]> http://significantobjects.com/2010/04/14/updates-iphone-app-art-show-and-1000-plus-for-girls-write-now/feed/ 0 http://significantobjects.com/2010/04/08/significant-objects-x-kate-bingaman-burt-x-20x200/ http://significantobjects.com/2010/04/08/significant-objects-x-kate-bingaman-burt-x-20x200/#comments Thu, 08 Apr 2010 10:37:04 +0000 Rob Walker http://significantobjects.com/?p=6348 We’ve hinted at various cool stuff that we’re up to that’s in the offing and that we can’t quite share details about yet.

And now we’re doing it again!

But listen: You must have heard about 20×200 by now — the online art gallery that lets you “discover great artists at an affordable price”?

And maybe you also know the work of Kate Bingaman-Burt, whose book Obsessive Consumption was just published by Princeton Architectural Press?

Well let’s just say this. IF we at Significant Objects WANTED to team up with an artist and an online gallery to create a set of prints commemorating S.O. v3 WITH proceeds going to Girls Write Now, then LET’S JUST SAY that working with Kate Bingaman-Burt and 20×200 would be the coolest partners we could think of to make that a reality.

That’s all we can say. . . . . . for now.

More next week.

I was inspired in part by this video in which a guy explains the significance of an ordinary-looking bar of soap — it is of course the object’s story (it was from the World Trade Center). Probably many listener submissions have stories attached. What could be a more useful addition to this discussion, then, than a Significant Object?

Specifically I thought the Mystery Object would be a really cool thing to add — as I argued over on Murketing.com, this may have been the most Significant of the Significant Objects to date: “By eliminating the object itself from the equation until after the bidding has concluded, this auction sells invented Significance in its purest, most uncut form yet.”As you know, the Mystery Object + Ben Greenman Story sold for $103.50.

Surely that’s a compelling finding to throw into a discussion of what objects mean! So I followed the directions and gave it a go. And sadly, BBC Radio disagrees with my assessment. In my description I explained the project, and I guess that’s why I got this message: “Unfortunately, your Mystery Object has not been put on the site. This is because it has broken our house rules on advertising.”

Advertising? It’s not for sale! (Or not from us anyway.) Maybe an S.O. being added to the online collection would have to come from one of our buyers who’s willing to go through the rigamarole (as I did) of registering on their site.

Ah well…