Private Client Services, 2021. Single-channel video, color, sound. 19:18 min.
Private Client Services is an earlier iteration of Offshore. In this video-performance, I attempt to launder money through the acquisition of an artwork, using a Wyoming LLC. Private Client Services also tells the story of the birth conceptual art in the late 1960s and the end of the gold standard in 1971. In this moment, money and art were no longer linked to objects with intrinsic value; they became dematerialized social constructs that exist in perpetual transformation. Professions and practices, based on discretion, evolved to take advantage of this mutability: art advisement, private wealth management, shell corporations and registered agents. In 2020, a Senate investigation concluded that the secrecy of the art world makes art βan attractive instrument to hide illicit assets... transactions are often private, prices are speculative, and an item can be easily smuggled to evade authorities.β In 2019, global art sales reached $64.1 billion dollars. In 2023, I received a Guggenheim award for this project, which resulted in its expansion into Offshore.