date> 2004

medium> hand stamps designed by Tate Liverpool staff, ink, UV light

credit> Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial International 04

description> A set of admission stamps reminiscent of inspection-agency marks will be used by museum staff to stamp the hands of visitors at the entrance to the exhibition venue. Each stamp is a personalized monogram or other design provided by individual staff members. While the stamps use ink that is visible only under UV light (blacklight), the process gives these employees an uncustomary visibility.

While marking the audience's participation in an economic process, the situation also mixes group dynamics, questions of acquiescence to authority, and varying individual attitudes towards being mark(et)ed. The monogram stamps refer to a number of social processes related to approval and exclusion, property, belonging, and emotional identification: branding, tagging and tattooing; connoisseurship; heraldic design and monogramming; and of course the class relationships embedded in all these practices. The poentially uncomfortable social negotiations of power between individuals (and the institution they represent) should be understood as an inevitable and crucial part of the project. It is also possible to imagine that the stamps could become sought-after markers collected and compared by the exhibition audience, like visa stamps, collectors' chops, post marks, and so on.