Grimes is taking the phrase “selling out” to a very literal extreme. That’s the title of her first online art exhibition, presented by Gallery Platform Los Angeles (May 28th through June 3rd) and Maccarone Los Angeles (May 28th through August 31st).
But amid all the photographs, drawings, sketches, and other visual works presented in the show, there’s also a work titled Selling Out, in which Grimes will sell a piece of her actual soul to the highest bidder.
This is far from the first trollish move that Grimes has pulled (remember her Adidas-sponsored “wellness” routine), but this may be the first where actual monetary gain is on the line. Originally, Grimes priced out her soul-piece for $10 million, making the possibility of someone actually purchasing a contract highly unlikely. She’s now put it up for auction at “best offer,” due to the current global recession and the slightly — slightly — bad optics of putting a seven-figure price tag on an abstract concept within your gallery show.
Self-imposed Faustian deals aside, it’s amazing that Grimes hasn’t done a visual art show like this sooner — she’s created all the cover art for her albums. “I see myself as a visual artist first and foremost,” Grimes told Bloomberg of her show, “and I’ve always felt strange that people know me for music.” She described the pieces as “a continuation of, rather than a departure from, [her]1 music.”
“The deeper we got with it, the more philosophically interesting it became,” she said. “Also, I really wanted to collaborate with my lawyer on art. The idea of fantastical art in the form of legal documents just seems very intriguing to me.”
