James Payne 📺

Original film footage by @cur8.ldn (follow them for great content). This is the work of @jckbtchr - When Butcher calculated the total cost of his first-ever booth at Art Basel Miami Beach, “Self Checkout”, the total came to $74,211, which included fair fees, fabrication, and other costs. He’s hoping to make that all back by letting collectors pay what they wish to buy his art, which in this case, literally is the receipt. Yves Klein famously sold receipts for “invisible” artworks, called “Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility,” in the late 1950s and early 1960s, where buyers paid with gold and received a certificate of ownership for an empty space, a conceptual piece that critics now see as a precursor to NFTs! This is a different idea though and I like how Butcher’s piece is about transparency in the art fair business which is all about hiding financial transactions and exorbitant costs. One thing hardly ever mentioned in all the Instagram coverage of @artbasel @friezeofficial etc is that unless the owners are independently wealthy, no small galleries can afford to take part in the these fairs, which is why there is little to no diversity in the booths. In Butcher’s work you can see exactly how much he stands to lose, and how many people are actually “interested” in his artistic offerings. I’d be interested in how he managed to finance it. Over to you @jckbtchr - @baselmiami @artvoxldn @carriescottcurates @artplugged @artlyst @theartnewspaper.official @artists.pages.daily @goodnightgallery @theartbystander @artstorylover @artforum