Declaration of Legacy

After my speech, Chuck read this Declaration of Legacy as a "will" of sorts and distributed signed & authenticated copies (printed two-sided with my artist's statement), encouraging those who attended the event to take detritus from destroyed artworks as party favors, souvenirs, mementos and/or materials to repurpose into new art.


Declaration of Legacy, December 8, 2012

I, Artist Jennifer A. Weigel, hereby declare that those Artworks created over the course of my career as a practicing Artist and accumulated during my life shall be destroyed upon my passing so to not grant greater significance and value to my Artworks through my death.

I shall not relinquish my Artworks to misinterpretation and misrepresentation by those critics, curators and historians who were disinterested in those very same Artworks over the course of my career as a practicing Artist.

I shall not allow my Artworks to increase in monetary value to collectors, dealers and patrons upon my death after remaining unsold, underbid through auctions & raffles, and being otherwise devalued during my life.

I shall not leave a legacy of Artworks to an unappreciative, undeserving and unsupportive public following that undermines living, local Artists in favor of those who are deceased or hail from afar. 

Therefore, I declare that any Artworks in my possession upon my death that somehow escape destruction are henceforth disowned and disavowed by myself, Artist Jennifer Weigel, and shall no longer be considered viable as my own for the purposes of value assessment.

In contrast, I hereby grant that the remains of those Artworks destroyed shall be allowed to act as Genuine Articles of my passing to record my career as a practicing Artist and to document my life, and may be distributed as such only if accompanied by a signed copy of this Declaration, as authenticated by my Husband Charles G. Wilbur.


Authentication of Genuine Article

These remains serve as a Genuine Article to act as documentation of the career and life of Artist Jennifer A. Weigel as authenticated by this copy of her Declaration of Legacy, originally distributed on Dec. 8, 2012 during her 10-year art anniversary retrospective show, Last Chance! One Night Only!

Signed,
Charles G. Wilbur
Husband to Artist Jennifer A. Weigel