The last day to see Take Me (I'm Yours) - the unique, participatory exhibition on view at the Jewish Museum that allows visitors to touch and take home the works of art on view - is on Sunday, February 5, 2017. On the final day, Daniel Spoerri's sculpture, Eat Art Happening, a skeleton made entirely of sugar paste, will be available for consumption by museum visitors.
Spoerri's sculpture offers a metaphor for life and death: the skeleton is an obvious symbol of death, but is made of sweet sugar and is edible, nurturing life. In addition, small winged sugar phalluses - also representing life - will be given out to mark the last day of the exhibition. (Both works are not kosher.)
Take Me (I'm Yours) at the Jewish Museum is the most recent iteration of the exhibition first mounted at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 1995 by Hans Ulrich Obrist and artist Christian Boltanski. This version, the first presentation of the exhibition in the United States, is curated by Jens Hoffmann, Director of Special Exhibitions and Public Programs, the Jewish Museum; Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, the Serpentine Galleries, London; and Kelly Taxter, Associate Curator, the Jewish Museum. The exhibition features 42 artists, including Andrea Bowers, Gilbert & George, Jonathan Horowitz, Alison Knowles, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Jonas Mekas, Martha Rosler, Tino Sehgal, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Lawrence Weiner, among others.
The exhibition is in many ways an homage to the work of Felix Gonzales-Torres-included in this exhibition is the artist's "Untitled" (USA Today), comprised of candies individually wrapped in red, silver, and blue cellophane which visitors are allowed to take. Visitors can also take home used clothing, granting each item an opportunity to come back to life (Christian Boltanski's Dispersion); wear Alex Israel's lapel pin in the shape of a miniature self-portrait; use sustainable toilet paper in the museum's bathrooms, calling attention to the global refugee crisis (No One is Disposable by General Sisters); or pay 25 cents for capsules of fresh air, packaged by Yoko Ono.
The final evening program tied to Take Me (I'm Yours) will be held on Thursday, January 19, at 6:30 pm, free with pay-what-you-wish admission. Artists Uri Aran and Ian Cheng will speak about their work in the context of the exhibition, in a conversation with Kelly Taxter, Associate Curator. Visit our website for details. Thematic gallery talks will also be held on Fridays, January 20 and February 3, at 2pm.
Visitors are encouraged to share photos of the exhibition on social media using #TakeMeImYoursNYC.
February 5 is also the final day to see John Singer Sargent's Mrs. Carl Meyer and Her Children. Seductive and revealing, this bravura painting captures the world of a privileged family of Jewish origin in late Victorian England. The exhibition also includes other family portraits, ephemera, documents, personal correspondence, and caricatures.
