“Betsey Geffen” was one of two performance works created for The Sheldon Museum’s “The Naked Museum” exhibition in 2013. Betsey, a gallerist and art dealer I created in 2001, led her own docent tour featuring two new fictional works she “acquired” for The Sheldon Museum by Tino Sehgal and Gino De Dominicis. The Sehgal piece required audience members to craft and throw paper airplanes which Betsey’s earned commission on, while the De Dominicis piece was an incorrectly installed invisible cube that she made audience members lift and re-install. This performance engaged with the perceived elitism of the contemporary art world and found humor in it, all the while creating an opportunity to have a dialogue with audience members about the art world, explore how value is determined and assigned to intangible ideas.
charley friedman, copyright