Rene Gimpel
exchange|performance|value|trust|royal college|power|object|commodity|lecture|art
commissioned by Graham Hudson
24 Jan 2003
Royal College of Art: London
Rene Gimpel
GIMPEL FILS
30 Davies Street
LONDON W1Y 1LG
Tel: 020 7493 2488
Dear Rene Gimpel,
Please find enclosed the text of a lecture which I think belongs to you, I found it on a lectern at Chelsea College of Art and Design; as you will see it has been annotated by me.
I should like to explain that I gave the lecture on your behalf, in fact as you, to the students at the Royal College of Art on the 24th January. I was invited to speak about my work as an artist, but during my preparation I read your lecture and began to think how appropriate it would be, not to talk about my practice but to perform it in some way. So, I announced to the students at the lecture, that Neil Cummings was unable to attend because of a personal crisis, and that I, Rene Gimpel had agreed to stand in at the last moment.
I then read your lecture verbatim, as best I could, using my own slides as accompaniment.
There was a very lively question and answer session afterwards, during which I at no time disclosed my ‘true’ identity. Students who already knew me interpreted the lecture as a critical gesture. Several students who did not know me tried to secure appointments to show me their work, or visit the gallery. I declined as tactfully as I could, and made no promises on your behalf.
In exchange for borrowing your lecture -which I should say, the students enjoyed enormously-I include Capital , a book to accompany a project I made with Marysia Lewandowska, hosted by Tate Modern and the Bank of England in 2001.
As you will see the project explores via the gift and it’s subsequent debt, themes of value and trust in the parallel symbolic or financial economies that the two institutions preside over. Issues of power haunt Capital, and my decision to appropriate your lecture was an attempt to embody those themes rather than merely talk about them.
Your lecture and its subject -the commodity heart of the art object- and the various anecdotes -painting over the Basquiat signature for instance- brought gasps from the audience, and fit uncannily into my own recent interest. Thank you.
Yours Sincerely,
Neil Cummings