Uploaded February 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In March 1975, Smith held an auction at the Pasadena Artists Concern in which she sold off segments of time to be spent with her. She wrote, "Any purchased event would begin to exist for the buyer as an imagined form in their mind while awaiting a date when the fantasy was to become a reality...The only distinction that made these events art, as compared to all other types of events, lay in our awareness of them being so."
This video is part of the Barbara T. Smith papers at the Getty Research Institute. View the finding aid for Smith's archive: https://primo.getty.edu/permalink/f/19q6gmb/GETTY_ALMA21155149520001551
Barbara T. Smith: The Way to Be is on view at the Getty Research Institute from February 28, 2023 through July 16, 2023. Learn more: https://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/exhibitions/barbara_t_smith/index.html
In March 1975, Smith held an auction at the Pasadena Artists Concern in which she sold off segments of time to be spent with her. She wrote, "Any purchased event would begin to exist for the buyer as an imagined form in their mind while awaiting a date when the fantasy was to become a reality...The only distinction that made these events art, as compared to all other types of events, lay in our awareness of them being so."
This video is part of the Barbara T. Smith papers at the Getty Research Institute. View the finding aid for Smith's archive: https://primo.getty.edu/permalink/f/19q6gmb/GETTY_ALMA21155149520001551
Barbara T. Smith: The Way to Be is on view at the Getty Research Institute from February 28, 2023 through July 16, 2023. Learn more: https://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/exhibitions/barbara_t_smith/index.html
