I had never exhibited at the Detroit Artists Market (DAM) but had been serving on the Exhibition Committee at DAM since 2011. There was an unexpected gap in the exhibition calendar during summer of 2013 and someone had proposed the concept of a 3-day pop-up by the Exhibition Committee members. Normally the Exhibition Committee members would be recused from exhibiting at the gallery, but it was determined it would be ok this one time for a brief show. Having spent a lot of time at DAM thinking about exhibitions and placing artwork there, I was hyper focused on creating a site specific work that highlighted the gallery infrastructure and the regions of space that we typically don’t want gallery goers to pay attention to. I based this work off of Untitled (Anton Art Center) but opted for a series of focal points, essentially abstract flowers in my mind, to be able to activate more space. Instead of water bottles on the ground I chose to use black liquor store bags with gold and grey text since they matched the aesthetic of the mottled dark linoleum floor at DAM. The plastic strips transition from green around the flowers to brown around the columns and floor to parallel the color transition in plants as they get woodier around the ground. This approach directly fed into the Stamelos Gallery version 11 years later.

— Andy T