California gubernatorial candidate and media-wise comic artist Lowell Darling kicked off his campaign yesterday by hauling the contents of his self-storage unit to San Francisco's Gallery 16 and putting them on display. Darling's possessions, which previously were stored at Southpoint Self Storage in Sebastopol, California, comprise an exhibit entitled "Full Disclosure." Darling says that putting the self-storage items on display shows that he has nothing to hide. Darling's possessions will be on display until March 31. In addition to the things that Darling was keeping in self-storage, he is also exhibiting all the rest of his worldly possessions. According to Gallery 16's website, Darling has put on exhibit "everything he owns." Some items, however, will remain in boxes.
"I took everything and set it in the middle of the gallery," Darling said. "Forty boxes containing the history of how I became an artist." The possessions on display include Darling's first drawing as a child, leftover documents from his previous failed gubernatorial bid against then governor Jerry Brown (who is expected to enter the race again this year) in 1978, and Internal Revenue Service documents from a dispute Darling had with the IRS in the early 1970s. Darling battled the IRS for years because it refused to classify him as an artist, claiming he did not make enough money at it for it to be considered his occupation.
"The IRS was my biggest influence," Darling said. "I was a conventional artist up to that point, and then I became a conceptual artist." Darling's battle with the IRS ended when he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for $3,000.
Darling, who does comic performance art, will conduct weekly performances in the midst of the "Full Disclosure" exhibit. During the performances, he will inventory the items from the boxes and discuss his life, art, and candidacy for governor with visitors.
At this point, Darling is a campaign veteran -- not only did he run for California governor against Jerry Brown in 1978, he also ran a tongue-in-cheek campaign for president of the United States in 2004. In that campaign, Darling encouraged all Americans to run for president, joking, "How many people can the Supreme Court take on?" In his 1978 campaign against Jerry Brown, Darling promised that if he was elected, he would invest in psychic-powered cars, do away with parking tickets, freeze highway construction and use the remaining construction money to pay Californians to be themselves, and give everybody Wednesday off. "I think I got the drunk and nearsighted vote," he commented later.
"Full Disclosure" is Darling's third exhibit at Gallery 16.