Martha Rosler: Meta-Monumental Garage Sale at MoMA

Martha Rosler, Travelling Garage Sale, La Mamelle Gallery, SF, 1977

For her first big solo show at MoMA, opening November 17, Martha Rosler is going straight to the heart of the museum, its atrium—the very same space where, two years ago, Marina Abramovic engaged in staring contests with total strangers during her own retrospective. Ms. Rosler’s show is just as unconventional, if not more so: originally staged at the University of California, San Diego in 1973, and then in Basel, Switzerland, and elsewhere, it’s an actual garage sale hawking items donated by the artist, MoMA staff and the general public. Visitors will have a chance to haggle with Ms. Rosler, who will donate the proceeds to a charity. Donations have been solicited over the summer, though thankfully, as The New York Times notes, “Food and other perishable items, liquids, weapons and toxic or hazardous materials [were not] accepted.”
 
If you are in New York this Sunday,  head over to PS1 with your stuff, Martha will be collecting between 12 -5pm for the November MoMA Garage Sale show. You can check out the NY Art Book Fair at the same time.