Processing Transactions, Forming Intent: Coproduction and Exchange in the Work of Allison Smith

This article chronicles the production of Allison Smith’s artwork The Donkey, The Jackass, and The Mule (2008), commissioned for the Indianapolis Museum of Art exhibition On Procession. As with other projects by Allison Smith, this work relies on participatory production that challenges normative categories for attributing authenticity to categories of originality, such as historical narrative, material state, or creative intent. Looking at The Donkey, The Jackass, and The Mule alongside Smith’s Notion Nanny (2005–7) and The Muster (2005), where exchange and hybridity are of fundamental value to the work, conservators and art historians may discover a case for reevaluating the role of artists’ intent in shaping canonical understandings of an artwork.