Rebecca Peel
John Knight
Stripe Painting



-December 8, 2015-

Dear Cass,

For our press release, John and I will just be using our names, the title of the show and our current geographic locations. As follows:

STRIPE PAINTING

REBECCA PEEL
New York, NY
JOHN KNIGHT
Portland, OR


We will use parts of this email exchange in the press release as well.

We will refrain from using an image in the press release.

A crowd control barrier is to be placed in the gallery for our exhibition.

There are to be letterpress prints on the opposite (inaccessible) side of the barricade announcing the exhibition.
They are flocked with fine graphite creating a single stripe on the surface of the print.
Also behind the barricade is a projector. It shows an anecdotal text which lays over two moving images.
The projected image is cast onto the wall that is shared between the gallery and the office.

A single PA will play an audio loop of a specific concert from 1966. The runtime for the audio loop is 120:00 minutes long.
119:00 minutes of the loop is muted for the exhibition. Is there a single PA system that can be rented by the Littman for this--
we have our own contacts if not.

Prior to the exhibition, a crate of stripe paintings will arrive at the gallery. We should speak soon about install dates.

Have you received the email from Eleanor Ford about the write up she will do on the Littman and our exhibition?
John assures me that he was contacted out of the blue about it. We have said yes and have passed along all available information to her
about the exhibition.

I have created a database to track the labor of the gallery staff during the exhibition. Gallery assistants have been instructed to
engage audience members about the exhibition. We have provided a text for them on the show so that they understand what is happening.
Assistants are [asked] to log their time explaining the exhibition onto an online database which will be accessible publicly during the exhibition.
The logged time will then be converted into currency at the end of the exhibition at $15.00/hr, and will be paid out to the gallery assistants
in the form of an IOU (since we have no money) and there is no budget for the exhibition.

What is left unanswered can be discussed, and whatever is still left unanswered can be pondered alongside our online database,
later, probably in private. We will let you know what the url for this database by the time the exhibition opens.


Note:

If/when asked about what's in the gallery, we invite you to tell people whatever you know. You may want to tell people, to begin with,
that their time with you is being logged into an online database that will act as an IOU for labor - that we consider this productive discourse
worthy of compensation. You can tell them where they might find the database, and what else they might find there.
(Namely links to our respective and collective research for the project.) We hope that they ask more questions, and that this leads to
a candid discussion about how we arrived at the objects etc. in the gallery, to which you can describe a parallel to the marginalization of resources
and social spaces that is taking place in order to privilege privatized spaces and resources, but only if you believe this to be true for yourself.
If not, you can disclaim or preface it accordingly. We invite you to lament about the receding of funding for the arts in public institutions,
such as this one, despite it being expected to maintain the appearance of a Commercial Gallery Space. You can tell them that John and Rebecca
have been working on this project for well over a year - ok, wow! Given the lack of 'work' and 'information' and 'text'! Altogether this is negligible,
but it is fact. We invite you to tell them about the Bob Dylan concert, and about John's association between that and Kanye West at the VMA's this year,
and these being examples of artists attempting to kill martyr complexes and/or making “anti-gestures”. We invite you to tell people that John and Rebecca
live in two parts of the country and have to collaborate by sharing, by negotiating, by resisting each other, by knowing each other, by not ever fully
knowing each other, or by missing each other. This has been our historical collaborative relationship since 2013.
You can tell them any personal anecdotes that this experience calls up for you, and if it feels appropriate, invite them to do the same.

Any more questions from us? John wonders if you will be able to meet next Monday.
This email is subject to change, so we welcome any feedback that you have at the moment as we continue to work on the details.

Additionally, we will be as available as we can throughout the duration of the exhibition to be accountable for anything that may come up.


Best,

Rebecca and John

P.S.: "There was to be no wasted language, no wasted breath..."

-December 8, 2015-