Monument to the Gallery Worker is an open edition of chewed pencils, developed from a work Middleton performed at Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery in 2010 for the exhibition Strange. The first time I’ve heard of a piano with four legs… curated by Eric Fredericksen.
The original work by the same title was undocumented, apart from a text written on the gallery wall in pencil that read:
“Monument to the Gallery Worker: January 21, 2010 / Chewed the ends of all the pencils and many pens in use at the Contemporary Art Gallery and its offices. / Jonathan Middleton”
This pencil edition bears the name of the work. Each pencil has been chewed by the artist and then thoroughly sanitized.