item details
NameSold
ProductionBilly Apple ONZM; artist; 1981; Auckland
Classificationprints, works on paper
Materials Summaryscreenprint inscribed in pencil
DimensionsImage: 495mm (width), 685mm (height)
Registration Number1981-0015-1
Credit linePurchased 1981
Overview
On the poster, it said there would be ‘Art for sale’ … But when you got there … the ‘art’ was all sold …
Tony Green, art critic, Art New Zealand, 1981
What is art, who assigns value, and who’s in whose pocket?
Apple hatched the plan for his Art for Sale exhibition in 1981 with Auckland dealer Peter Webb. ‘The condition,’ as one critic wrote, ‘was that … the works sold in advance’.
Here, you can see a seemingly simple receipt for an art work, made out to the National Art Gallery (now Te Papa). But in this case, the receipt – along with the transaction behind it – is the art work.