When people talk about art, whether it is the public or an art professional, they often talk about anecdotes and histories more readily than they talk about content. “ This piece is about the affair (said artist) had with so and so”, or “the artist lost two fingers making this piece.” Etc. Like any object found at any one of the millions of garage sales across the United States, every work of art has a history not directly connected to content. Damien Hirst’s work sells because of the mythology of Damien Hirst, not because of its use or intrinsic qualities (or even that it is a good work of art). Curatorial practices encourage this type thinking even when pieces are exceptional. For example, the Eleanor Antin exhibition of photographs at the San Diego Museum of Art this past fall “Historical Takes” was accompanied by ‘making-of’ videos. The inclusion of these videos seemed to imply that the photographs are more significant when placed in an art historical context through the legitimization that the documentation (and presentation) of their coming-into-being invokes. The photographs are treated as relics of art-historical study before they are given a chance to exist as the living works of art that they are. Does the audience need this legitimization to see these as great works of art? Maybe, maybe not.

Our event has it’s own back-story. When just beginning to talk about doing this, I came across an interview of *Martha Rosler about her well-known exhibition that originated at UCSD in 1973 also titled “Garage Sale”. In the interview she said:

“[…] Garage sales are vernacular forms in which suburbanites, primarily, set a number of cast off items in or in front of their garages, put up signs, and hope that people will browse and buy… I saw it as an art form of contemporary American society and determined to create such a sale in an art gallery.”

“My sale included unlikely items, such as empty boxes and welfare commodity containers, private letters and photos, cast-off underwear, girlie magazines, dead landscaping materials, broken household items and a notebook listing the names of men. The gallery was arranged so that the brightest lighting and the best items were at the front, and the questionable, less saleable, more personal, and even salacious items were located further back as the lighting progressively diminished, leading finally to the empty containers and other abject items. A tape recorder played a ‘meditation’ by the garage sale ‘persona’ I had adopted- dressed in a long-skirted hippie costume – wondering aloud what the garage sale represents and quoting Marx on the commodity form. A projector showed images of blonde middle-class families, at home and on trips, on slides bought at a local garage sale of the effects of a dead man. A blackboard bore the phrase, ‘Maybe the garage sale is a metaphor for the mind.’”

Ours was a reciprocal process.





From the beginning, the intention of Agitprop was to be an integrated part of the neighborhood, like a shoe store, a telephone pole, gum on a bench, or a post office. Conceptually, the idea was to bring the ‘gallery’ into the neighborhood and the neighborhood into the ‘gallery’. Much of the interior of the space was left as it was found allowing physical traces of its previous use to remain. Its last use being storage for the corner store that it is adjacent to. Alterations were kept to a minimum. We only added or changed the space as much as we needed to accommodate use. Nothing more. We allotted space for exhibition and space for work that were porous in terms of physical definition: the studio spills into the exhibition space and the exhibition space spills onto the street and, in turn, the street influences what happens in the studios. In this sense Agitprop is not a Gallery. In this sense it also not a Studio. It is a place where art and neighborhood overlap. Agitprop temporarily opens up to the street, allowing people to participate with what is happening inside, and then closes again to blend back into the neighborhood aggregate. It is a semi-invisible force influenced by the preconditions of its material and social surroundings. The people involved disperse after an event, going back to their usual routines, only to return again with more material with which to work. Agitprop is a space where ideas, often drawn from the neighborhood, are presented in flexible units that people are encouraged to take or leave, accept or reject, admire or criticize. It is a micro-recycling center of cultural production. A beverage store of ideas.





Maintaining a space like this is hard work that requires the dedication and contribution of a large number of individuals. Some are artists or have an art background, and some do not. Ideas for projects are taken from feedback given by visitors/contributors to the space or individuals in the neighborhood. The input of these collaborators is not ancillary. It is fundamental. It is this collaboration of individuals that was the pretext for “Garage Sale”, and is why “Garage Sale” is emblematic of what Agitprop is.

More than anybody involved with this event Joy Boe acted as curator. Joy has a background in merchandising and currently manages a gift shop at a day program for adults with developmental disabilities, as well as conducting job training there. I also spent two years working at this same day program as an art instructor, which is how I know Joy. Other than a high school art course, Joy does not have an art background. This is why I asked her to collaborate on an event. We talked about many different approaches and settled on the idea of some sort of “blow out” sale. At about this same time, I met Judith Pedroza, a recent transplant from Mexico City. She is an artist and had also experimented with garage sales as a form of cultural distribution. She approached homeowners whose garage sales she had attended and asked if she could sell her drawings from their garages at another time. She said this was an effective approach and that she sold many drawings. Joy and I talked with Judith about contributing to the event and she agreed, helping with organizational aspects and donating drawings.





Joe Yorty is an artist and often works with images of objects or material that has been cast aside: a pile of discarded branches, an unmade bunk in a military ship, or 500 photos of free couches downloaded from Craigslist. He is also an avid flea market and rummage sale attendee. Joe has been involved with several Agitprop events including “Art TapOut”.

Josh Bellfy and Eddie Miramontes are fixtures in the space. Both are artists. Josh has been a part of Agitprop from the beginning and has contributed to multiple events and in multiple ways. His work ranges from collage to drawing to painting to performance. He also runs the day-to-day operations of a gallery in Kensington. Eddie is a painter and screen-printer whose work manifests itself in the form of unique multiple drawings and paintings of a repetitive subject that he refers to as prints. He works at the Ken Theater…

GARAGE SALE:

The American Garage Sale establishes itself like an open retreat and social detachment: “I invite you to my home to buy my second hand objects”. It puts to sale personal and private objects, which are not of use and consequently, have a second possibility at being discovered and recycled. However, the essence of this project is found in the possibility of interaction between two otherwise strangers.

The guests can buy and are also invited to take part in an exercise of connection: getting to know a small part of this discarded privacy through the simple act of attending, browsing, and choosing. Whether its an object of necessity or an art piece that a guest finds, this exercise becomes a reflexive act of “Prying”: Looking through the things that others have in their homes as a communicative practice between guest and seller: A meeting through objects.

In the end, it is quite possible that the task of getting rid of a part of ones privacy through the exchange of cash will not have been completed. However, interaction and communication will be evident through the movements of guests and objects alike.
-- Judith Pedroza

In the midst of our dissolving economy there is a death at Wal-Mart, a
worker trampled to the end of his life by shoppers so ready to spend
money, so anxious to get to the BIG DEAL first, nothing could stop them.
In every state, Teachers and care providers are losing their jobs, and yet
Christmas was still here. As bright and overpriced as ever.
I wonder what it may take to end this epidemic, to put a stop or even a
skip in this contagious influenza that is crippling our country. Ironically, in this time of change and nationwide renewal, I found myself organizing a Garage Sale!
Moving through the remnants of my rubbish I could remember what
originally brought me to keep these now useless items...
A 13 inch black and white TV and one eyed yellow bear
A pair of electric scissors from Montgomery ward, circa 1960
Portable typewriter, needing ink
Pair of brown wedges, size 8 1/2
Orange hard case suitcase and slip dress
An oval mirror with pink rosettes
Framed waterfall scene with 2 horses, that lights up with scenic noises
Retro inspired media player, with irremovable cd
4 borderless clip frames, in assorted sizes
A set of 5 steak knives, wood handle and Beaches on VHS
A Vintage TV tray...
and piles and piles more of irrelevant objects.
The appeal of maintaining these things was once enough to preserve their place in my life.
Yet even in their boxed grave, their presence alone
irritates me and I want them GONE, immediately! Like an urgent bowel
movement, flushed, good-bye! So long to the living memoirs,
I’d rather have 50 cents.
Even more so, I have found each article a gaping mouth begging to be fed, hungry with neglect, living in their hope of a second or 75th life, still useful to someone who does not mind dusting it, or ideally, to someone who can USE it!
Our GARAGE SALE features these items as a tribute to my wasted youth,
as a source of fundraising to keep our space alive, and as a challenge to all of you.
What do the items you keep, say about you? What about the ones you are willing to waste? What is sacred, and how is that kept? In storage, under a bed, outside? And what are you worth, anyway?
-- Joy Boe

Garage sales can illustrate the principles of visual marketing and generate
questions about the nature of objects. I have worked in various jobs that
have stressed the importance of visual displays and the idea of silent
selling. The goal of which is to construct displays in such a way that
makes a customer feel like the objects are unique and/or special and are
there solely for their needs. A boutique clothing store, of which there are plenty in North Park, has a greater understanding of this concept then, lets say, CVS or Walgreen's, which has the convenience of stacked full displays, but lacks the faked uniqueness of the boutiques objects. It is the moral of the fable “Emperor's New Clothes” that interests me.

Can objects be arranged in such a way that it would make a solid contribution to the amount of sales?
Does the installation of the garage sale within a gallery setting contribute/detract from the value of the objects and authenticity of said installation?
Do the objects and sale seem more important in the gallery than they do in a real life garage sale?
What would make one garage sale, (this one hopefully), more successful than another?

For this event I have donated valuables in the form of effort (help) and
time. I have nothing to donate or art with which to sell to buyers. I do
however have my precious time and my ability to help in some capacity,
which will hopefully contribute to the aesthetics of the event.
-- Josh Bellfy

Swap meets and flea markets, yard sales, garage sales, rummage sales, estate sales, dumpster diving, even craigslist . . . the treasure hunt never ends. As one who makes art and has a slightly unhealthy obsession with shopping for used junk, when I was asked to be part of Agitprop’s rummage sale I couldn’t imagine a better fit. While the pursuit of the killer bargain is my main motivation for spending so much time second-hand shopping I am interested also in what this never-ending flow of stuff might imply. I am attracted to how the thrift store or rummage sale can incidentally become a place of sociological critique and how, often times, more is revealed about culture in these places than in galleries and museums. I’m looking forward to seeing what we might discover when art gallery is transformed into rummage sale. But if nothing is learned at least I walked away with the Wonder Woman travel coffee mug that I couldn’t live without – and I only paid a dollar for it.
-- Joe Yorty

sometimes you find
something grand
in places you did not
think to look.

And as often as it does,
our minds follow too close a
line, and prevents
us from being able to see

we create art everywhere
the other day i found
something simple
something grand
and bought it for almost
nothing:
a little mark rothko postcard,
it was framed.

it made me think of this idea
of having art in a gallery
and art to be found in a
yard sale.
-- Eddie Miramontes

*Martha Rosler, excerpts from ‘The Garage Sale is a Metaphor for the Mind: A Conversation between Martha Rosler and Jens Hoffmann’, in Stephen Johnstone, ed., The everyday ( Cambridge, MA: Whitechapel &The MIT Press, 2008), 222-223.