<nettime> Collectors to Pay Cash Up Front for Exclusive Conceptual Art

[Bruce Sterling <bruces@well.com>]

For Immediate Release
contact: jonathon_keats@yahoo.com

BERLIN GALLERY TO OFFER AUTHENTIC MILLION-EURO
EXPERIENCE
Sensation of Spending a Fortune is the Artwork...
Collectors to Pay Cash Up Front... Exclusive Offering
to Begin on September 28th

September 17, 2007  -- During the week of Art Forum
Berlin, while an international roster of galleries
hawk blue-chip paintings to wealthy collectors, R.T.
Hansen, Inc. will provide patrons with an
unprecedented opportunity to buy art without the
nuisance of hanging it. Through a special arrangement
with American conceptual artist Jonathon Keats, the
Gormannstrasse gallery will offer the unadulterated
experience of spending money. "Each transaction is an
original artwork," explains Mr. Keats, who has
previously sold real estate in higher dimensions of
space and futures contracts on his own brain. "The
artwork comes into existence the moment that you buy
it, and remains solely yours until you sell it to
someone else by engaging another buyer in an
equivalent transaction."

Collectors are free to decide what they want to pay
the gallery for an artwork. "It's a personal matter
how much you have to spend in order for the experience
to affect you," says Mr. Keats.  "For some, it will
take a million euros or more, while others need only
splurge one eurocent." What all transactions will have
in common is immediate cash payment, with absolutely
no paperwork, in order to prevent potentially valuable
documentation from getting in the way of the pure
spending experience.

According to a prospectus issued by the gallery,
experiences will be available in an unlimited edition,
making them accessible to everyone. Nevertheless
potential collectors are assured that each artwork is
original and unique. "No two transactions, even for
the same amount of money, will be experienced in quite
the same way," claims dealer Rasmus Hansen, who will
affix a red dot to the empty gallery walls each time
an experience is sold.  Mr. Hansen finds the art
appealing because it transcends matters of taste. For
Mr. Keats, the project tests a more ambitious plan to
reduce all shopping to the essential act of money
changing hands. "Whether in an art gallery or a mall,
spending is existential," he says. "By eliminating the
merchandise that nobody really wants anyway, this
crucial human activity becomes environmentally
sustainable."

        .     .     .
R.T. Hansen, Inc. is located at Gormannstrasse 19 A,
10119 Berlin. The phone number is +49 3041992282.  The
web address is www.inc-berlin.com

    .     .     .
Jonathon Keats is a conceptual artist, fabulist, and
critic residing in San Francisco, California. Recently
he exhibited extraterrestrial abstract artwork at the
Judah L. Magnes Museum. He has also attempted to
genetically engineer God in a petri dish, in
collaboration with scientists at the University of
California; petitioned Berkeley to pass a fundamental
law of logic - A=A - a work commissioned by the city's
annual Arts Festival; and opened the world's first
porn theater for house plants in the town of Chico,
CA. He has been awarded Yaddo and MacDowell
fellowships, and his projects have been documented by
PBS and the BBC World Service, as well as periodicals
ranging from Flash Art to New Scientist. For more
information, please contact Mr. Keats at
jonathon_keats@yahoo.com, or see
http://www.modernisminc.com/artists/Jonathon_KEATS

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