Drawings to buy

Year: 2025

Medium: A velvet rope (dangling), a sensor-activated alarm (too sensitive), 37 ambiguous objects (deliberately fragile), a security guard (overly involved).

Dimensions: Shifts depending on transgressions.

“Please Do Not Interact With The Art (Except When You Must)” is a rigorous examination of boundaries, authority, and the fine line between passive observation and inevitable catastrophe. The installation consists of 37 objects placed throughout the gallery space, their arrangements echoing both order and an accident waiting to happen. Each object teeters just slightly, as if placed in mild defiance of gravity.

A single velvet rope hangs in the middle of the room, unattached to anything, useless yet present.

An omnipresent sign warns: PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THE ARTWORK.

However, hidden motion sensors trigger a piercing alarm if a visitor steps too close—the definition of too close fluctuating wildly. Some experience the siren from metres away. Others only realize they’ve transgressed when a security guard appears, shaking their head in quiet disappointment.

Adding to the confusion, select objects are labeled: “PLEASE INTERACT.”

But these labels are written in faint, barely legible text and are placed facing the wall.

Visitors must decide: To interact, or not? To test the system, or submit to its unseen logic? The security guard watches. The alarm waits. The velvet rope sways ever so slightly in the artificial breeze.

“We accept authority without question until it contradicts itself. Then we are lost.”

— Davos

This work centres around institutional critique, performative obedience, and the aesthetics of control. With “Please Do Not Interact With The Art (Except When You Must)”, Davos weaponizes the fundamental rules of gallery etiquette, turning the act of looking into an act of risk.

The installation’s tension lies in its inconsistencies. The velvet rope—normally a symbol of separation—offers no clear division. The alarm enforces an invisible yet arbitrary boundary. The security guard, rather than preventing infractions, appears only after they occur, his silent reproach more unsettling than any verbal warning.

And then, of course, there are the 37 objects themselves. Are they art? Are they props? Are they traps? No one knows for sure. The only certainty is that, at some point, someone will set off the alarm.

Visitor Guidelines:

• Do not touch the artwork. (Unless you must.)

• The security guard cannot answer your questions. He is part of the piece.

• If you hear the alarm, assume it was your fault.

• If you do not hear the alarm, assume you have missed the point.

Price: £785,000 (includes objects, alarm system, and an ongoing agreement with the security guard).

Limited Edition Artifact: A signed PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH sign (edition of 14), available for £120,000 each.

Critics’ Reactions:

•“A brutal interrogation of institutional control. I have never been so afraid of an alarm.”

• “Davos forces us to question the nature of permission. I was reprimanded three times, and I deserved it.”

• “I did not touch the art. And yet, I still feel guilty.”

With “Please Do Not Interact With The Art (Except When You Must)”, Davos invites us into a paradox: a space where we are simultaneously free and restricted, where we follow the rules until we realize—too late—that we’ve already broken them.