Monthly Statement:
October 2005

OBJECT #7
DATE SENT: October 26, 2005
SENT TO: Buzz Hartshorn
SENT VIA: US Postal Service
DESCRIPTION OF OBJECT: Screw-on aluminum reflector for spotlight, with a few minor dents, scratches, and stains. Originally a piece of masking tape with the name “Buzz” written in ink was on the outside of the object.

ORIGIN AND APPROXIMATE DATE OF POSSESSION OF OBJECT: Found in a storage/closet space behind a wall in the newly constructed gallery of the Visual Studies Workshop Gallery, 31 Prince Street, Rochester, NY. Found in the fall of 1979.

MOST RECENT LOCATION OF OBJECT: On the top shelf in my studio darkroom, in the dry section of the darkroom, against the western wall.

RELATION OF OBJECT TO RECIPIENT: The reflector was left behind by Buzz Hartshorn when he moved from Rochester. He had been assistant to the Gallery Director when he was a student at the Visual Studies Workshop. The Gallery and the entire facility at 31 Prince Street was pretty much built by we students during 1978 to 1979. I remember Buzz putting up walls in the gallery. It was a skill that became valuable for all of us. Beginning in the fall of 1979 I was assistant to the director of the gallery, and the wall that Buzz had helped build had a narrow storage/closet space behind it, filled with papers and tools and various neglected objects. The reflector was there for some time before I decided it would be OK to borrow it. I imagine Buzz used the reflector as part of a lighting set-up for his photographic work which he did with an 8x10” view camera. The photographs were of constructed sculptural objects that were non-functional, complex, and puzzling. I believe we traded prints, as I have one of them in my personal collection. When I found the reflector, I thought Buzz wouldn’t mind me using it. I intended to return it to him when I saw him next in New York, where he had moved, but I never did. The piece of masking tape is long gone, and the reflector’s function now might serve in any workshop, visual or otherwise.

RESPONSE OF RECIPIENT:

DATE OF RESPONSE:

Process: My plan is to de-accumulate objects I now own during the course of the exhibition year. I will photograph the selected object then send the object with a letter to a person who has some relationship to the object or whom I think might be interested in the object. The letter will discuss the project and tell the receiver they can keep the object, destroy it, give it away, recycle it or anything else they choose. I will ask them to document it in the place they now have it and send their image and/or written description back to me of what they did with it and where it is. I plan on de-accumulating an average of one object per week. The new images/descriptions will be placed in a plastic folder and exhibited along with a photograph of the object as it was in my possession.