Annuit Cœptis III (2011)

A durational performance installation with a single-channel video

Date: December 11, 2010 – January 22, 2011
Venue: Sullivan Galleries, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

With support from Adam Van Eeckhout, Ana Kei and Cheng-Yung Kuo
Presented as part of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s faculty-juried exhibition Stories of Relativity in the Sullivan Galleries.

From the 16th until the 23rd of January 2010, the artist worked as a go-go dancer at a nightclub in New York City. He displayed the dollar bills he earned for the 6 nights of work within the installation space. Each panel displayed in the gallery contains the tips he earned on each particular night.

As part of the performance installation, he removed the Eye-of-providence from the reverse side of each individual dollar bill and collected them into a vial. He then packaged each bill into an envelope with an accompanying letter and reintroduced these bills into the public sphere one year after receiving them from January 16 – 23, 2011. A total of 306 recipients consisting of the artist’s friends and family were each gifted a dollar bill via the postal service.

*Annuit Cœptis – He who approves of our undertakings, annuo (nod, approve) and cœpta (beginnings, undertakings).

Video Documentation: (3 mins, by Cheng-Yung Kuo)

Photo Documentation: (by Cheng-Yung Kuo)