Do You Have 30 Seconds and Can You Get Your Finger Dirty? Individual, 2002 on going, Iris print 8.5 x 11 inches Nigel Poor Do You Have 30 Seconds and Can You Get Your Finger Dirty? The long-awaited cumulative project entitled "Do You Have 30 Seconds and Can You Get Your Finger Dirty?" will finally be unveiled at Haines Gallery on March 30. In 2002 Nigel Poor began collecting fingerprints from random individuals at public functions. In addition to the print of their index finger the artist also asked each person to provide their first name, gender, age and occupation. To date the artist has collected over 5,000 fingerprints and the project remains ongoing. Poor states: "I take this project with me wherever I go and use any public moment to ask individuals to participate. It is an interactive piece that relies on the willingness of strangers to become part of the project. If I cannot convince them to stop and listen to my request the project will fail, as the archive will cease to increase. Once a person agrees to participate their fingerprint not only expresses their existence but also marks a place where two strangers had a momentary and intimate interaction." Upon seeing the installation it may appear as though there are thousands of smudges across the walls but upon closer inspection each mark is an individual identified and archived. Today fingerprinting is the most commonly used forensic evidence worldwide and fingerprinting continues to expand as the premier method for identifying persons, with tens of thousands of persons added to fingerprint repositories daily in America alone - far outdistancing similar databases in growth. In addition to the installation of pages the artist has produced individual digital prints in a larger scale at 24 x 18 inches. These works on paper closely mimic a historic portrait paining; the ornamental nameplate below and in place of the person's image is their fingerprint. This association makes all the more clear the numerous identity issues confronted in this body. Throughout the exhibition, on each Saturday from 12:00 - 3:00 pm, the artist will be present in the gallery taking fingerprints to add to the project - an exciting interactive element to this exhibition. Nigel Poor's work was recently featured in the opening exhibition of permanent collection of the new de Young Museum in San Francisco. She is also in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., and the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Exhibition: March 30 - May 6, 2006 Gallery hours: Tues-Fri 10:30am - 5:30pm, Sat 10:30am - 5:00pm Haines Gallery 49 Geary Street, Suite 540 USA-San Francisco, CA 94108 Telephone +1 415 397-8114 Fax +1 415 397-8115 Email info@hainesgallery.com www.hainesgallery.com |
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