#413 Turned Table - Ball

This work was produced during the participatory art project "TABLES Ball" at the opening of my exhibition Real Thing at Galleri Konstepidemin in Göteborg, Sweden. Participants were invited to roll around a heavy short stop ball in the wet filler on the panel mounted with legs, like a table. It proved to be slightly difficult but that can sometimes be a good thing. During the exhibition period, the table became sculptural documentation of the event, and afterwards, I disassembled the legs and finished the work in my studio.

TABLES is a triparted art project. First, it is a participatory art event where I invite the public to do a mark or imprint in the wet filler inside a frame with legs attached, placed on the floor like a table. The table functions as a kind of recording device documenting any movement transcending its surface. Second, I exhibit the table and its surface-document of the event as it is. Finally, the legs are detached, I finish the work, tilt it, and turn it into a painting with the title Turned Table.

And it is part of Res Ipsa, a compilation of works made by some action shaping the filler once it is prepared inside the frame. The works thus function as a recording device and give testimony about the event while the filler was still wet.

Res Ipsa is Latin for "the thing itself" and is part of the juridical term "Res ipsa loquitur" (the thing speaks for itself), used when an injury or accident in itself clearly shows who is responsible, such as an instrument left inside a body after surgery.