Not For Sale: Barter Exchange
July 17 - August 28
The Harold J. Miossi Art Gallery presents Not for Sale: Barter Exchange, a summer
marketplace where nothing has a price, and everything has a value. Featuring 32 artists,
Not for Sale imagines an economy built on connection. Artists from across California
offer their work in trade, naming what they want and need, and patrons answer with
what they have to give. The gallery becomes a forum: a place to wonder, to connect,
to make a deal.
Trade is a call-and-response: a person names a want, and someone answers. In 1969,
Ed Kienholz made trade the concept behind his exhibition Watercolors, with each painting
featuring text describing the exchange he was after: a chainsaw, a fur coat, nine
screwdrivers. The response came from whoever walked in ready to answer. Not for Sale
carries the tradition forward, asking what value looks like when it's decided by people
rather than set by a market's bottom line.
Every artist in this catalog has made a call. Some are asking for something practical:
help painting a fence, an argon cylinder and regulator, and a month's rent. Some are
asking for something different: lunch with a local lesbian, a two-hour DJ lesson in
house and techno, a heartfelt poem or song. Read through the pages that follow, imagine
possibilities, and participate in an exchange that goes beyond the gallery walls.
History
In 1969, working on a project, Ed Kienholz needed a tool he didn't own. Rather than
buy it, he asked why he couldn't simply trade a piece of art for it instead. The question
became a show. At Eugenia Butler Gallery on La Cienega Boulevard, Kienholz exhibited
more than one hundred watercolors, each 12 by 16 inches, framed in metal, washed in
pastel color, and stamped in ink with exactly what he wanted in return: a Timex watch,
a fur coat, a set of screwdrivers, and a sum of cash. Each was signed with his thumbprint.
Patrons brought what he asked for, shook his hand, and walked out with the work. The
exhibition came to be known as The Barter Show.