© Robert Watts Estate, NYC/photo Bruce M. White
1962–63
Flux Rattle from the Yam Festival Delivery Event
Robert Watts, American, 1923–1988
Robert Watts, American, 1923–1988

Flux Rattle from the Yam Festival Delivery Event, 1962–63

Plastic hotdog, cork, clay balls, and paint
14 x 3.2 x 3.8 cm. (5 1/2 x 1 1/4 x 1 1/2 in.) (assembled)
Courtesy of the Robert Watts Estate, New York
In 1962, New Jersey-based artists Brecht and Watts (the latter a professor at Douglass College) launched a subscription service called Yam Festival Delivery Event. Inspired by the marketing techniques of Madison Avenue as well as late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century novelties, the event commenced upon the arrival of a simple card that invited recipients to purchase "a work" assembled by one of the two artists. The works took three forms: event scores, objects to be utilized during an event, or both. The objects ranged widely: some were fabricated by the artists, others were found, and others still were found and later altered, such as Watts's Flux Rattle.

Cooperation and Contradiction