Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2008 > January > 16
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Houston artists seek to auction their cremated remains
Houston artists the Art Guys — aka Michael Galbreth and Jack A. Massing — are taking their provocative and outrageous art to a new extreme.
With “Forever Yours,” the duo are offering their cremated remains to the highest bidder. Bidding begins at $1 million. A sales brochure has been distributed, noting that the bidding will end at midnight on April 1.
The purchaser will receive the cremated remains of both Galbreth and Massing, housed in life-size bronze replica busts along with all the related legal documents, project drawings, contracts and other documents related to the project.
No bids have been submitted yet.
Of course, both Galbreth (born in 1956) and Massing (born in 1960) are alive and well and celebrating their 25th anniversary this year as one the more unusual artistic collaborative teams. So in the meantime, until they pass away, the lucky collector who shells out $1 million or more for “Forever Yours” will get all the documents and the empty bronze busts. An example of the busts looks like this (rendering by Chris Lockwood):
Michael Galbreth
Jack Massing
Yes, “Forever Yours” is slightly macabre, but it’s not that much of an outrageous stretch for the Art Guys. They’ve been inching toward this during their whole careers.
They’ve walked 10 miles through downtown Houston with their feet stuck in buckets of water. They swam across Houston’s Buffalo Bayou wearing suits and then drank bayou water.
And for “Suits: The Clothes Make the Man,” the Art Guys leased advertising space on specially tailored business suits designed for them by Todd Oldham. Then they wore the suits — embroidered with 62 logos from 56 companies — for a year as they traveled the United States.
As part of the 25 year celebration, this year the Art Guys will release a DVD compilation of their performance works as well as a CD of musical compositions by and about them with songs by Terry Allen, Pauline Oliveros, Joe “King” Carrasco, Daniel Johnston and Ralph Carney, among others. Several exhibitions throughout Houston are also planned.
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