Structures (2000- ?)

Clancco  ||   5 May 2007

In this ongoing project, Structures, CLANCCO seeks to explore the current restrictions on the exhibition and experiencing of contemporary sculpture. This investigation takes place in private and public property through the use of property laws governing fixtures, trespass, and the acquisition of private property (adverse possession). Through these artistic structures, CLANCCO also seeks to challenge the historical discourse of property ownership through the more recent and nascent intellectual property law discourses.

The procedure is as follows: CLANCCO finds private and public property locations across the United States and installs sculptural-architectural structures on these same sites, some with permission, some without. The sculptural-architectural structures shown below were installed between 2000 and 2007, in cities and towns across the United States (from Northridge, CA, Ithaca, NY, and El Paso, TX, to Cambridge, MA, New York City and Williamsburg, Brooklyn).

The last point to note is that none of these structures have been sold, stored, or destroyed by CLANCCO. These structures were left in place in order to allow for a more organic and natural placement or displacement. The whereabouts and fate of these structures remains unknown.

In April of 2008, Clancco published an essay expanding on its ongoing project, Structures. This essay is available via PDF format in the recent issue of Unbound: Harvard Journal of the Legal Left. In Structures, Clancco explores alternative exhibition spaces in which to analyze real and intellectual property laws by finding private and public property locations across the United States--unaffiliated with any art institution--and installs structures on these sites, at times with consent of the landowner, at other times without.

In this essay Clancco explores the relationship between the readymade, the corporate entity, and so-called outlaw practices, particularly through the historical practices of urban squatters, Native American contestations of land, Rosa Parks, as well as the art historical art practices of Blinky Palermo, Michael Asher, and Gordon Matta-Clark. The provisional conclusion arrived at in this essay is the beginning of an investigation which must analyze the incremental proprietary element in the owning of aesthetic experiences.

(Installed at intersection of 5th Avenue and 53rd Street, NY, NY)


(Installed in Home Depot, Cambridge, MA)


(Installed on private property, Northridge, CA)

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