BEN BLANC

The Exchange

An installation of 200 handmade and sequentially numbered objects became a laboratory in which the line between art, design, retail, and commerce was blurred when the value of each object was challenged.

Each black dyed Douglas-fir object was sold for $30.00. One, unmarked and indistinguishable from the others, contained a 20.06-gram river washed Alaskan gold nugget recovered from the Nome area in 2011. It was 99% pure gold with a fluctuating market value of approximately $1,010.82. Over the course of the show, the exhibition became less of a static installation, and transformed into an evolving record of consumer trust, sale, and commerce both in the gallery as well as online. Sales were documented and marked by a symbolic wood letter X throughout the run of the exhibition.

At the conclusion the numbered edition containing the gold was announced. (#104)

Materials: douglas-fir, black dye, gold