PAST

Take Me (I’m Yours) aims to create a democratic space for all visitors to take ownership of artworks, and curate their personal art collections, by subverting the usual politics of value, consumerism, and the museum experience. Visitors constantly transform the landscape of the galleries, bit by bit, through direct engagement.

This presentation builds upon an iconic exhibition of the same name that took place in 1995 at the Serpentine Gallery in London. Conceived by the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and the artist Christian Boltanski, it included works by twelve artists, several of whom are participating again here. Obrist and Boltanski took inspiration from a host of histories and ideologies related to possession, from the anarchist idea that “ownership is theft” to the post-1960s dematerialization of the object in conceptual art.

Restaging this exhibition at the Jewish Museum, a collecting institution with holdings that span centuries, offers occasion to rethink the role of the museum as an archive. Instead of collecting works and preserving them for all eternity, we are giving them away. Sharing pervades Jewish life, beginning in the home and extending out to the community. Here the exhibition is the home, and the works are what we share with you, our visitors. Participating Artists: aaajiao, Kelly Akashi, Uri Aran, Dana Awartani, Cara Benedetto, Christian Boltanski, Andrea Bowers, James Lee Byars, Luis Camnitzer, Ian Cheng, Heman Chong, Maria Eichhorn, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Claire Fontaine, Andrea Fraser, General Sisters, Gilbert & George, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Yngve Holen, Carsten Höller, Jonathan Horowitz, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Alex Israel, Koo Jeong A, Alison Knowles, Angelika Markul, Adriana Martinez, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Jonas Mekas, Rivane Neuenschwander, Yoko Ono, Sondra Perry, Rachel Rose, Martha Rosler, Allan Ruppersberg, Tino Sehgal, Daniel Spoerri, Haim Steinbach, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Amalia Ulman, Lawrence Weiner.