The Gift by Jochen Gerz

What did I get myself into? Obviously, I had no idea. A couple months ago, my friend from New Jersey, Richie Rich calls me for a favor. He wanted me to go to SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts) the following day to pick a couple framed photographs of him and his girlfriend. He wanted to surprise his girlfriend with the photographs. Well, I agreed and said I'd do it for him because I thought it was really sweet what he was trying to do. Anything for love, at least I thought. The exhibition called Art of Participation: 1950 to Now debuted on November 8, 2008. February 8, 2009 was the closing day of this exhibition. One of the exhibits I was there for was The Gift by Jochen Gerz. So, at the beginning of the exhibition, guests of the museum were invited to have their photographs taken which were later displayed as part of the exhibit. They took photos of exactly 2,000 people. Pretty interesting, right? So as the last day of the exhibition, Jochen Gerz invited all those that participated to come to the closing event and retrieve their black and white portrait. So...I get to SFMOMA at approximately 1pm. I was surround by strangers. I was people watching (my favorite hobby by the way). I was ear hustling, too. My envision of this art exhibit was far from. There were no portraits hung up on a wall like any museum would most likely do. All I saw was a bunch of random non-celebrity looking people standing in a line that wrapped around The Schwab room. I felt like I was in 2 hour line for a roller coaster ride. The line was extremely long but it wasn't more than a half hour wait. So, as I approach closer and closer to the start of the line, I caught myself listening in on a few conversations. First, I was listening in on a conversation between two young females employees of The Gift exhibit. Female #1 explains to Female #2 how exciting this is for her. Female #2 replies to Female #1 and adds in how it would be nice if she witnessed two people finding love. I'm like, WTF?!' Umm, aren't we just picking up framed photographs? Did they not receive the memo? Minutes later, there was a cameraman taking footage of everyone in line. I notice that everyone who already received their free portrait, wasn't even their portrait. For a second, I thought, hmmm...they must be just like me: picking it up for a friend. But, I only witnessed one, yes ONE young man coming out of the crowd with his own portrait. I started getting suspicious. Is there something that I'm not aware of? Should I call Richie Rich? Then there was another interview of an older man and older woman. At first, I thought they were friends. Then later, as I listened in more...they were just two people whom stood next to each other while in line. When they got to receive their individual portrait, the man received the woman's and not his. The older man was sharing his thoughts about the exhibit to the cameraman stating it felt like "serendipity". Then he tells the cameraman that him and the woman made plans for dinner. I'm like, 'Huh? You mean like a date??' I accidentally said aloud (but thought I said it in my head), "I'm lost" to myself and my neighbor looked at me and laughed. She said, "You don't get it?". Then she explained to me that the artist purposely gave the older man a portrait other than his which turned out to be the portrait of the woman he was standing next to. "Aaaah..", I said. But in reality, I still didn't get it and I did not want to admit it to the person that was trying to explain it to me. Why would Gerz do that? I was finally up front claiming the frame pictures of my friend and his girlfriend. I gave Richie Rich's name to the worker. She drew a line to cross him out. I gave another name (Richie Rich's girlfriend) and she did the same. The strange thing was she didn't even tell the other employee to look for those two names. In my head, I'm like umm, don't you need that information to get to the right portrait? The line moved fast and the next thing I knew I was standing right beside Jochen Gerz, himself. He looked at me and he looked at my paper which only contained a handwritten 'x2'. I'm assuming that meant, I get two portraits. He turned over a random frame face up and it was so not my friend's picture nor his girlfriend. It was a Caucasian lady! Sorry, to break it to you, Mr. Gerz but my friend and his girlfriend are Asian. Filipino to be exact. I was speechless and still lost!! He says..."Look at her. She looks scared doesn't she?". "Ummm...I guess so", I said. "It seems as though she's hiding some kind of secret. I guess you have to try and figure it out, huh." I took the framed portrait from him thinking that maybe I got this my mistake. "OK...thanks", I said. He goes on and says "OK...let's see the next". He turns over another framed portrait and once again it's another Caucasian lady. "Oh look at that! You get two women!". I smiled, took it from his hands. With the two huge portraits in hand, I walked away grinning with no hesitation. This must be some type of art fad. A practical joke for normal sane people. A joke that only true artists will understand and appreciate. I'm out of here, I thought. I quickly avoided the cameraman fearing that he would corner me and asked what I thought of this entire exhibit. Then a Light bulb moment flashes before my eyes!! I finally got it!! It wasn't until I was about to claim my friend's framed pictured that I realized - The 2,000 pictures weren't the exhibit. It was all the people that were standing in line!!!! For as long it it took me to finally get it, that certainly was the BIG twist to this art exhibit. Good thing about this entire ordeal was that I was not the only one who had the impression that people would get back recognizable photographs.

So here is my completed assignment as promised, Mr. Jochen Gerz. I've took home your "gift" and now have published it for the whole world to see world to see. You asked me to figure out what's their story was. You told me to read into them and figure out their thoughts. That I did. Both of the pictures I received seemed very lonely and displaced in this world. My guess is that they were unhappy and waiting for someone to cheer them up. I attempted to do so by taking them outdoors to enjoy the sun with my god daughter/niece. I hope they cheered up after our little outing. If not, I tried. Check out other photos from the "THE GIFT" gallery on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/the_gift_sfmoma/ p.s. Richie Rich, maybe you'll find your photos here one day. That's if everyone else did their homework like me!