Allison Beda

Tiny Bio | Experimental humourist filmmaker, Conceptual Sculptor and Dada Gallerist who loves joyful guerilla art interventions, turning difficult life experiences into comedic works of art, and working with what you have.

Tiny Statement | My film art is deeply personal, darkly comic, subversively feminist and my conceptual sculptures question what art is and who gets to decide. For the work “THIS IS NOT FREE CANDY” I was gifted 3 pieces of candy from the Whitney Museum of American Art from the piece by Felix Gonzalez-Torres called Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) in their permanent collection that features a pile of candy for visitors to take…the security guard watching over the piece explained that the artist had created the piece in memory of his partner Ross who had died and that it was the weight of Ross in candy and that the idea was that each visitor could take a piece of candy until it was all gone, as Ross was now gone. So, in effect, the piece would disappear, like Ross had. The guard said that the Whitney didn’t let the piece disappear, (as it seems, and my research shows was the artist’s intent) but rather that the Whitney would constantly replenish it, so we could take as much as we wanted. And, the guard added, in light of the Whitney’s decision to present the work this way (which I agreed completely twisted the meaning and impression of the work) thought probably the Whitney should really just be calling the piece “Free Candy”.

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