No Longer Art: Salvage Art Institute

Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation and the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery present No Longer Art: Salvage Art Institute. Salvage art, a term borrowed from the art insurance lexicon, refers to work removed from art circulation due to accidental damage. Founded by artist Elka Krajewska, the Salvage Art Institute provides a refuge for salvaged artwork while offering a platform for confronting the regulation of its financial, aesthetic and social value.

At the core of the exhibition is the first salvage art inventory gifted to the institute, a group of objects related primarily through their “total loss” status. Developed by Krajewska and GSAPP Exhibitions with the participation of AXA Art Insurance Corporation, No Longer Art: Salvage Art Institute engages an actuarial logic that delivers a series of curious reversals. Foremost among these is the annulment of the value of total loss objects. Once a work has been declared a total loss and indemnification has been paid, insured objects are officially considered devoid of value. Left in the limbo of warehouse storage, these objects belong to an odd nether world, no longer alive in terms of the market, gallery or museum system, but often still relatively intact. The survival of salvage art even past its total devaluation confronts our common understanding of where art ends, disturbing the distinction, organization, and separation of art from non-art.

Elka Krajewska
Born in Warsaw and based in New York City, Elka Krajewska is the president
and founder of Salvage Art Institute and an artist who works with film, sculpture, music and mixed media. Krajewska's work utilizes elements of her biography, contemporary interdisciplinary art historical strategies and is often based on collaboration.

6:30pm
Opening and Conversation
The opening on Wednesday, November 14th will follow a conversation with political theorist Jane Bennett, President and CEO of AXA Art Insurance Corporation Christiane Fischer, artist Elka Krajewska, conservator Christian Scheidemann, Director of Exhibitions Mark Wasiuta, and GSAPP Dean Mark Wigley. Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery, Buell Hall, Columbia University. 

Please note, due to the storm the No Longer Art: Salvage Art Institute Opening and Conversation date has changed to November 14th.

2–6pm
Roundtable Discussion
On Friday, November 30th the gallery will host a roundtable discussion on salvage art and on questions of damage and value with art historian Alexander Dumbadze, poet, novelist and critic Ben Lerner, architectural historian Andrew Herscher, artist Elka Krajewska, artist and art lawyer Sérgio Muñoz Sarmiento, anthropologist Michael Taussig, certified appraiser and valuation specialist Renee Vara, Director Of Exhibitions Mark Wasiuta. Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery, Buell Hall, Columbia University. 

Exhibition on view at the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery, Buell Hall, Columbia University, Tuesday through Saturday 12-6, November 8th to December 20th.

Curated by Elka Krajewska and Mark Wasiuta
Exhibition designed by Elka Krajewska, Mark Wasiuta and Adam Bandler

Download the Invitation