I never really understood how making and selling art could be united. How can someone who makes art also be interested in selling it? Now, however, because I have been doing performance art, the selling of art has become even more alien to me. I used to have several side-jobs for which I took the role of a salesperson. It was a complicated task, as I never fully supported the products that I had to sell to my customers, and additionally, the act of the selling always felt unnatural. As a result I have come to reevaluate what it means to sell products, especially products that no longer have value for others or that just get lost or left behind on the streets.

The work “Value Products” consists of three parts:

a. collecting small manufactured items from the street

b. naming, valuing, and labeling the materials

c. selling the products at a market

Before putting the products in their packages I asked others to name the items and to tell me what they thought the value of that particular piece was. Each item that I find is named and the data regarding the place and time of its discovery is included on its label.

I sold several products during the first sales performance at a flea market in Neuss Germany. Among them were: PLASTIC VERPAKKINGSAFVAL for C0,10; LUTSCHERSTIEL for C0,-; COFFEE for C4,-; BONBONPAPIER for C0,50; ZIGARRETTENSCHATEL for C0,05; PAPIERMÜLL for C0,05 and ZWERFAFVAL for minus C0,35. The ones that I didn’t sell I kept for the next market. To name a couple that are in stock, I have: KIPPENPROTHESE for C44,99; BUDDY for C500,-; KWEETNIET for C6,-; and an ELASTIC BAND for C30,-.

In the meantime, the assortment of retail products have expanded, with new ones that I have found in Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Gent (Belgium), Turku (Finland), and Graz (Austria).