Managing Artist Estates: From Seduction to Soft Network's Horizontal Thinking
A recent discussion at Participant Inc in New York highlighted the unique management of artist estates. Performance artist Penny Arcade recounted her efforts to delay the landlord of the late queer filmmaker Jack Smith, who passed away in 1989, in order to protect sections of his apartment walls. Along with friends, Arcade salvaged pieces before the apartment was demolished. The event, titled 'Horizontal Thinking,' was organized by Soft Network, a non-profit in New York that has been managing estates since 2021, in collaboration with curator Marcelo Gabriel Yáñez. It features portraits by Turkish-American photographer Sheyla Baykal, who died in 1996 and had appointed Arcade as her 'Death Mother' to carry out her artistic intentions. The exhibition showcases portraits of Smith and others.
Key facts
- Penny Arcade stalled Jack Smith's landlord by asking him to explain football, saving wall fragments from his apartment.
- Jack Smith died in 1989; his apartment was later gutted.
- Soft Network is a New York-based non-profit managing artist estates since 2021.
- Exhibition 'Horizontal Thinking' at Participant Inc features Sheyla Baykal's portraits from 1979–1996.
- Baykal was a Turkish-American photographer who moved to New York in 1962 and died of cervical cancer in 1996.
- Baykal asked Arcade to be her 'Death Mother' before her death.
- Baykal wanted her negatives printed posthumously and exhibited like Nan Goldin's Whitney survey 'I'll be Your Mirror'.
- Soft Network cofounder Chelsea Spengemann commented on artists' lack of time/resources for legacy planning.
Entities
Artists
- Jack Smith
- Penny Arcade
- Sheyla Baykal
- Marcelo Gabriel Yáñez
- Nan Goldin
- Agosto Machado
- Cookie Mueller
- Paul Thek
- Chelsea Spengemann
- Susan Reis
- Adam Jenkins
- Alexa Foote
Institutions
- Participant Inc
- Soft Network
- Whitney Museum of American Art
Locations
- New York
- United States