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In March 1998, Refusalon invited Samuel Yates to exhibit a twenty-foot tall self-portrait composed of 1,200 steel cans at Art Frankfurt No. 10, Frankfurt, Germany. The condensed sculpture was shipped from San Francisco to Frankfurt inside a donated port-a-potty complete with bullet holes, residual aroma, and "fragile/this end up" stickers. Dubbed "Refusalon," the toilet became a portable extension of the gallery as a venue and vehicle for peripheral art—a Salon des Refusés. In an extraordinary turn of events for the performative shipment, the sculpture inside the toilet was dismantled in transit, presumably by customs officials searching for narcotics, and every label on every can was damaged by the unsuspecting dismantler. Hastily prepared for showtime, and unable to be shown at its twenty-foot height, the objects provoked media attention that included three national television segments and the enclosed newspaper articles. Later, however,
after six months of unanswered communications with the German insurance company regarding
the destruction of the piece, Refusalon was asked to provide the following: While the former request was easily fulfilled by tracking the path of the shipment, the latter request is yet to be resolved. The sculpture, Self-Portrait, now sits inside the port-a-potty inside the Frankfurt Ballet, awaiting erection at the T.A.T. in 1999. |
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