Danica Phelps: Every Day Life

When Phelps put out a call for critics and scholars to write about a subject found in her work--not about her work itself, but one of its themes--and then to trade their piece for a drawing of their choosing, it set off her third barter-based project. The first enmeshed her in a system of mutual indebtedness with other Brooklyn artists, the second with her compatriots in representation by Chelsea's LFL Gallery, and this last puts critics from Adrian Dannatt (the Art Newspaper) to Frances Richard (Artforum) in her pocket. Each participant gets a new object and the goodwill generated by the unusual transaction, but Phelps remains in some sense the owner of the deal itself, which she sells in new work documenting it, including this book.