Sal Randolph (born May 30, 1959) is an American artist and theorist who works with issues of gift-giving, money, alternate economies, and

social architecture Social architecture is the conscious design of an environment that encourages a desired range of social behaviors leading towards some goal or set of goals. The environment social architecture influences may be social systems In sociology, a soc ...

. She founded the non-curated sound-exchange web project Opsound, which functions through the use of music released exclusively under a

copyleft Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. In this sense, ''freedoms'' refers to the use of the work for any purpose, ...

license, and has been cited by

Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence "Larry" Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American legal scholar and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvar ...

as an example of how

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

works to enable artists to collaborate more freely and build on each other's work. Other large-scale, collaborative projects created and implemented by Randolph includ
Free Manifesta
an
The Free Biennial
in which several hundred artists presented their work in free and open shows in New York's and Frankfurt am Main's public spaces. Artists participating in those projects included

Christophe Bruno Christophe Bruno (born 1964) is a French visual artist who works particularly in the medium of internet art, and has been described as the world's first "Human Browser".Aram Saroyan Aram Saroyan (born September 25, 1943) is an American poet, novelist, biographer, memoirist and playwright, who is especially known for his minimalist poetry, famous examples of which include the one-word poem "lighght" and a one-letter poem compr ...

Swoon (artist) Caledonia Curry (born 1977), whose work appears under the name Swoon, is an American contemporary artist who works with printmaking, sculpture, and stop-motion animation to create immersive installations, community-based projects and public art ...

, and

Michael Cunningham Michael Cunningham (born November 6, 1952) is an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for his 1998 novel '' The Hours'', which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. Cunningham is Professor in th ...

, among many others. Pursuing her ongoing interest in issues surrounding money and economies of attention and exclusivity, she gained entry into

Manifesta Manifesta, also known as the European Nomadic Biennial, is a European pan-regional contemporary cultural biennale. History Manifesta was founded in 1994 by Dutch art historian Hedwig Fijen. The first edition took place in Rotterdam. One of t ...

4 by purchasing her entry from the Basel-based

Christoph Büchel Christoph Büchel (born 1966) is a Swiss artist known for provocative contemporary installations. He received international attention for constructing a mosque in a Venice church and suggesting that prototypes for Donald Trump's wall should be c ...

when that artist auctioned his participation rights on eBay – which was itself an art piece/provocation. This led to Free Manifesta, in which, through Randolph, hundreds of artists were suddenly allowed to participate in the previously exclusive Manifesta. This work extended the artist's first large-scale cooperative project, The Free Biennial in her home city of New York, which came into being as her response to the

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...

, and which also garnered the participation of a wide range of noted artists across many disciplines. Among her other projects i
Free Words
an early shopdropping (a form of

culture jamming Culture jamming (sometimes also guerrilla communication) is a form of protest used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. It at ...

) project which garnered an international network of volunteers who "introduced" the book ''Free Words'' (a large collection of random words initially assembled by Randolph—and later by hundreds of project contributors—over many years) into bookstores and libraries around the world. Other projects include works in

sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary Time-based media, time-based Artistic medium, medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in Cross-genr ...

, and a variety of exhibitions within the collaborative

Glowlab Glowlab was an artist-run space, artist-run initiative that produced and presented experimental work related to city, cities and psychogeography, including interactive artworks and projects, events, exhibitions, and artists' gatherings. Brooklyn a ...

. Recent projects includ
Free Money
(shown in Vancouver, where she was invited to participate in the Live Biennale)
Free Press
(shown in Röda Sten Contemporary Art Space in Göteborg, Sweden, where the artist created an open access publishing house)
ReadingBetween
an
InTheConversation
Her work as a writer and theorist explores issues related to post-autonomous art and the gift; she has both written for and created actions within

Cabinet Magazine ''Cabinet Magazine'' is a quarterly, Brooklyn, New York–based, non-profit art and culture magazine established in 2000. ''Cabinet Magazine'' also operates an event and exhibition space in Brooklyn. In 2022, ''Cabinet'' transitioned its magazi ...

, and her writing on the experience of art has recently been featured in The American Reader.The American Reader
/ref> The artist's work has been presented in numerous museum and gallery exhibitions, including Manifesta 4 and "Don’t Miss" in Frankfurt am Main, the

Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst The nGbK – neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (lit. New Society for Visual Arts) is a German art association. It was founded in 1969 with a grassroots democratic structure and is, by its own account, one of the most important and largest as ...

(NGBK) and BüroFriedrich Gallery in Berlin, La Box in Bourges, the

Palais de Tokyo The Palais de Tokyo (''Tokyo Palace'') is a building dedicated to modern and contemporary art, located at 13 avenue du Président-Wilson, facing the Trocadéro, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The eastern wing of the building belongs to ...

and Bétonsalon in Paris, Röda Sten in Göteborg, Live Bienalle/Western Front in Vancouver, Art Interactive and

Oni Gallery An ( ) is a kind of ''yōkai'', demon, orc, ogre, or troll in Japanese folklore. They are believed to live in caves or deep in the mountains or in hell. Oni are known for their superhuman strength and have been associated with powers like thun ...

in Boston, as well as Cinders Gallery, Pace Digital Gallery, the Fountain Art Fair, Salvation Gallery, and the Conflux Festival in New York. Randolph teaches and lectures as a visiting artist and has appeared in that capacity at the UCRIA conference, Open Engagement,

Maryland Institute College of Art The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a Private university, private art school, art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, it is regarded as one of ...

, the GEL conference,

Massachusetts College of Art Massachusetts College of Art and Design, branded as MassArt, is a public college of visual and applied art in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1873, it is one of the nation's oldest art schools, and the only publicly funded independent art sch ...

Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach ' (, plural: ') is the generic term in German for institutions of higher education, corresponding to ''universities'' and ''colleges'' in English. The term ''Universität'' (plural: ''Universitäten'') is reserved for institutions with the right to ...

, RISD, and in collaboration with D. Graham Burnett at Princeton.

References

Additional references

* "Manifesta Opens in Frankfurt – Artworld", Art in America, May 2002 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_5_90/ai_86195011 * Dannat, Adrian. “Adrian Dannatt’s New York Diary: FREE WORDS–any words” The Art Newspaper, No. 121 January 2002. * Paharia, Neeru. "Featured Commoner: Interview with Sal Randolph" Creative Commons, https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7012 March, 2003 * Snodgrass, Susan. "Manifesta 4: defining Europe? Report From Frankfurt" Art in America, January 2003. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_1_91/ai_96126343/ * Ulaby, Neda, “Free Books in Public Places” Weekend Edition Saturday, May 18, 2002 https://www.npr.org/2002/05/18/1143585/free-books-in-public-places * Velthius, Olav, Imaginary Economics; Contemporary Artists and the World of Big Money, NAi Publishers, Belgium, 2005 * Wong, Sherry, "Bonus Biennials" Artnet April, 2002 https://www.artnet.com/Magazine/reviews/wong/wong3-15-02.asp * Zimmerman, Brian "Public Notice" Village Voice, May 6, 2003 http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0319,zimmerman,43875,1.html * Myles, Eileen, "Shore Leave" Village Voice, August 15, 2000 http://www.villagevoice.com/art/0033,myles,17278,13.html * Perra, Daniele. "web sites: 1. www.freewords.org" Tema Celeste, Number 93, Fall 2002. * Werneburg, Brigitte. "Logistik für Bandwürmer,” TAZ, May 28, 2002. * Zolyóm, Francisca. "Everyone is Invited: Interview with Sal Randolph" Exindex, http://www.exindex.hu, December 2002. * Balint, Anna. "Resist the Flattening Effect of Being on Display: Interview with Sal Randolph" ART-Hoc, No. 22-23, December, 2002.

External links

* Free Manifesta http://freemanifesta.org * The Free Biennial http://freebiennial.org * Opsound http://opsound.org * Free Words http://freewords.org * Free Money http://freemoneyrelease.org * Manifesta 4 https://web.archive.org/web/20071106131437/http://www.manifesta.org/manifesta4/en/projects/artist1585.html * Sal Randolph http://salrandolph.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Randolph, Sal 1959 births Living people American conceptual artists Artists from New York City Harvard University alumni