Dead Darlings

Who are
Dead Darlings?

Dead Darlings started off as a subversive, anonymous art auction in Amsterdam in 2005. It has since grown into an international platform with a mission to explore the often fraught, always complex relationship between the price and the value of an artwork. In a world that often conflates the two, we enjoy creating circumstances that enable us to pry those notions apart—exposing the cracks in that mindset—and, together with artists, art lovers, and members of the public, work to deconstruct existing structures that sustain unwarranted bias, inequity, and greed.

Dead Darlings #8 – Occupational Hazard, 2015.
From left to right: white gloves Kristina Mirova, Kali Rose and Daiana Voinescu; auctioneer Tania Theodorou and one of the team members Hanna Mattes. Photo: Kyle Tryhorn.

Our focus is on artefacts whose value is ambiguous: Dead Darlings. This term refers to work an artist has created but never brought to light. The name Dead Darlings was inspired by the phrase “kill your darlings,” something we were strongly advised to do in art school and later continued in our autonomous art practices. But what does it mean to kill your darlings? Sometimes a strong work, or a piece the maker is attached to, needs to be sacrificed in favour of the end result.

Our amazing white gloves Roberto Pérez Gayo showing an artwork to the audience during Dead Darlings #10 — Flash in the Pan, 2018. Photo: Kyle Tryhorn.

Audience gathering at Foam Museum during Dead Darlings #9 – Entropy, 2017. Photo: Kyle Tryhorn.

Our amazing white gloves Karly Rose holding an artwork to the audience, with auctionier Tania Theodorou in the background during Dead Darlings #9 — Entropy, 2017. Photo: Kyle Tryhorn.

Most of the time, artists forge ahead and never look back, but sometimes those decisions are difficult. We struggle. We toss and turn. We ask ourselves: what are the characteristics that excluded this specific work from the book, the installation, or the final selection for the show? Can the reasons be accounted for? What does this exclusion say about a work’s intrinsic value? Our killed darlings—and the many questions they raise—haunt us.

Our amazing white gloves Kristina Mirova holding up an artwork during Dead Darlings #8 – Occupational Hazard, 2015. Photo: Kyle Tryhorn.

Dead Darlings #6 – Inner Circle, Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, 10 September 2011. Photo: Ingo Sturm.

That’s exactly when we, as the Dead Darlings Collective, intervene. Those artworks are the stars of our show: the excluded, undervalued, misunderstood, yet meaningful and beloved outcasts of an artist’s practice.

Dead Darlings #7 — Ghent, 2011. Photo: Thomas Janssens.

Auctions tend to be formal and elitist, but also a format where buried treasures come to light. Our auctions are a cheeky wink to the art market establishment: by adopting and mocking one of its most formal conventions, we are able to take a step back and be critical while at the same time offering artists, audiences, and those unique killed darlings an even playing field—where value and price are distinct, where we recognise and acknowledge them as separate, and where we challenge fixed notions of demand, desirability, and commerce.

Dead Darlings #7 — Ghent, Anatomic Auditorium ‘Cirque’, Ghent, 3 December 2011. Photo: Thomas Janssens.

Dead darlings, once put aside, lose any monetary benefit for the artist, regardless of the time, labour, or cost spent on their production, because they no longer have a context in which to be exhibited or sold. They are the works that fall between the cracks of the artist’s practice. Our auctions add value to these works outside the constructs in which they were rejected. We create a platform to (re)consider their value from a different perspective.

Dead Darlings #8 – Occupational Hazard, 2015. Photo: Kyle Tryhorn.

This way, artists are encouraged to examine their motives, reveal something about their process, and often uncover hidden gems that deserve a second chance in the world.

Tania Theodorou keeping track of the paddles during Dead Darlings #7 — Ghent, 2011. Photo: Thomas Janssens.

Audiences are encouraged to examine their own value system too, because dead darlings are auctioned off anonymously. There is a list of participating artists, but no one knows who made what until the name is revealed immediately after the sale is final. Not only does this add an extra layer of excitement and anticipation to our live events, but it invites people to bid for what they love—to let themselves be dazzled by the work itself, not by the artist’s fame, familiarity with an oeuvre, its commercial status, or simple name recognition.

Another aspect that sets Dead Darlings auctions apart is that the starting prices of the artworks—sometimes as low as €0.99—are integral to our philosophy. They act as an important reminder that value is relative, subject to change, and, we believe, something that should be regularly reassessed as a matter of principle.

This radical pricing also helps create an inviting, low-threshold event that includes everyone who might be interested or simply curious. Everyone is welcome at Dead Darlings, and our audiences are as diverse as the artists we work with. They include seasoned art collectors, enthusiastic amateurs, artists’ friends and family, people who would otherwise never participate in an art auction, and, of course, other artists. To take part in the auction, you simply sign up, receive a numbered paddle, and take a seat.

We perform the auction in a way that is both a homage—big names, a stage, an auctioneer, art handlers with white gloves, numbered paddles, real money, and lots of tension and anticipation—and a satire: all of the above, plus a big dose of humour, blind bidding, a casual and relaxed atmosphere, and very low starting prices.