Miha Sarani with Dana Blume | En Titled

August 3 – 26, 2023

Opening / First Thursday Art Walk: August 3, 5-8pm
Artist Talk: August 5, 1pm

I’ve been closely following the recent rise in art destruction – from the climate activists, the Hunt Slonem’s Thunderbunny sculpture incident in Florida, to the recently Polish teenager smashing 200-year statue for clout.

I might lack some objectivity due to my own experience back in 2016, when an unknown assailant vandalized and permanently damaged one of my paintings at the University of Washington – which had a profound impact on me. Now in 2023 it happened again. Something I made was vandalized and destroyed.

Taking a more proactive tactic this time, I’ll be dedicating my upcoming August show at the Shift Gallery to it – and the act of my own entitlement is not lost on me. “En Titled” will be an interactive, collaborative exhibit with a very talented artist Dana Blume, in which the audience will be invited to either physically destroy or save
drawings on display.

This maker-permissible, performative action will help arrive at the exhibit’s intent via a network of actions, which demonstrate some current attitudes. The exhibit will additionally amplify the idea of authentic, first-person perspective and current desire for audience participation, while helping erase the lines between message/messenger and creator/creation.

What criteria will determine the likelihood of audience participation and the fate of a drawing? Will it be the subject matter, skill level, artist’s presence, political views, or some alternative factor altogether.

I will continue posting drawings for the exhibit, and if you wish to grab an original for free, stop by the gallery in August to save it from its potential demise – because somebody else might destroy it.