For By Request, seven DC art world power players—collectors, curators, and critics—were asked to fill out surveys to determine their ideal works of art. These surveys were turned over to seven different DC artists who pledged to deliver custom pieces.
The project’s jumping off point is polling data. Because of this, By Request at least superficially resembles the 1994–97 People’s Choice project by Komar and Melamid—in which the two artists used polling companies to determine archetypal most desirable and least desirable paintings for various countries.
The project’s jumping off point is polling data. Because of this, By Request at least superficially resembles the 1994–97 People’s Choice project by Komar and Melamid—in which the two artists used polling companies to determine archetypal most desirable and least desirable paintings for various countries.
But whereas People’s Choice attempted to reveal something about national character, By Request simply aims for transparency within the field of cultural production—collecting and evaluating the opinions of professionals ostensibly in order to thoroughly explain why DC gallery culture currently looks the way it does.
There was one small catch: The show’s organizer, Jeffry Cudlin, insisted to the participating artists that he be depicted in every work of art. This was meant to underscore his privileged status as the broker of all seven transactions—the show’s gatekeeper, statistician, and coordinator. The resulting commissioned pieces, performance video, photos, and related ephemera depicted Cudlin in a variety of outlandish settings, and featured such far-flung elements as references to Eadweard Muybridge, prosthetic makeup, and even a severed pig's head.
There was one small catch: The show’s organizer, Jeffry Cudlin, insisted to the participating artists that he be depicted in every work of art. This was meant to underscore his privileged status as the broker of all seven transactions—the show’s gatekeeper, statistician, and coordinator. The resulting commissioned pieces, performance video, photos, and related ephemera depicted Cudlin in a variety of outlandish settings, and featured such far-flung elements as references to Eadweard Muybridge, prosthetic makeup, and even a severed pig's head.
By Request ultimately functioned as an unlikely laboratory for quasi-open-ended collaboration between artists, collectors, critics, and curators. And while the project set strict guidelines surrounding each artist’s production of a piece for the show, the resulting group of works nonetheless reflects a pervading sense of liberation—and a determination to create strong pieces even in the face of absurd or unhelpful demands.
