Take Me (I'm Yours) at The Jewish Museum

Take Me (I’m Yours) at The Jewish Museum (through February 5, 2017) encourages viewers to engage with the art through touch, taste and even allows them to take works of art by the 42 artists in the exhibition home. Take Me vis-à-vis traditional forms of art exhibitions is unconventional, but plays on the ideas of relational aesthetics. The idea is that viewers (who are given a plastic bag and an exhibition guide via a metallic paper towel dispenser) are supposed to ‘curate’ their own personal collections. Add in something about consumerism and value and traditional art viewership and voilà!

Modeled after an iconic 1995 Serpentine Gallery exhibition of the same name in London conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Christian Boltanski, this iteration is more expansive (the original only included twelve artists). The themes drawn from in the exhibition include possession and the anarchist idea that ‘ownership is theft.’ So you’re thinking about the museum as an archive (that’s never been done before). You’re giving away free shit (who doesn’t love free shit?!). You’re facilitating sharing and dialogue. Hourra!