CHRISTINE FREEMAN – El Cerrito – 2023

March 9th was an epic day.
In late 2003 my company was approached to do an exhibition of artwork by its artists at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York. After two years of work on the project the exhibition opened in December of 2005. What was to be a six week run in New York turned into an international touring show lasting 17 yeas, seen by millions of people in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. My teammates and I have traveled the world with the artwork, caring for it as it moves from museum to museum, swapping in new art as the original art needed to rest. Although I haven’t been intimately involved with the project for many years, I was there at the beginning and I volunteered to be the lucky person who checked in the crates yesterday as they returned home to the United States for the final time.
In honor of the day I wore:– A wraparound skirt that I bought at El Rastro in Madrid– Japanese exit sign earrings from Koriyama, Japan— An American flag scarf from the mall next to our Museum in Nagasaki (my final install and deinstall, in 2016)– The coat that I wore for an install in Bonn– The tshirt that the Italian art handling team had made “Veni. Vidi. Pixar”
I don’t really know what else to say except that it was the end of an era. For me to think about it is to try to swallow the ocean. It is literally unfathomable.