Man Bartlett's 24-Hour Dream Appraisal

Troy Schulze

Man Bartlett and Nancy Douthey in a strangely moving 24-hour performance

​Saturday night, Art Attack checked out a curious show at the laid-back Montrose house gallery Skydive. New York-based artist Man Bartlett was in middle of a 24-hour performance piece called #24hClerk, in which he accepted dream submissions online and from spectators. Bartlett, armed with a price gun, repeated the dream out loud, his assistant Nancy Douthey taking dictation at typewriter, and determined a price for each dream. Then he affixed the price to a sheet of paper pinned to the wall. He and Douthey did this for 24 hours straight.

Art Attack went back the next day to see how it all shook out. Bartlett and Douthey were definitely tired and emotional. There was evidence of late-night noshing strewn about. Douthey's typewriter ribbon had run out of ink, but she was still typing blank pages, committed to the task.

At 3pm Sunday, when Bartlett looked into his laptop webcam and announced, "24 hour clerk ... end," and hit a button, shutting down the piece, he was emotionally spent. He told Art Attack that the build-up of considering people's dreams for 24 hours straight had taken a toll on his emotions. The product of the exercise, a mass of orange price tags on paper, was now the final work in his current show "NEW SOME," which will remain on view through April 9.

Click ahead for photos of the performance.

Troy Schulze

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