Agnes Bolt interacts with guests in her live-in plastic enclosure.

One month before artist Agnes Bolt moved into a plastic structure in Philippa Hughes' home to explore the dynamic between artist and collector, a wealthy collector purchased a young man in a plastic structure for his home, and placed him on display. It was a fictional occurrence, though, which took place within the world of Caridad Svich's play Magnificent Waste, presented by Factory 449 at Flashpoint. Oddly prescient of Hughes' and Bolt's experience (photos here!), Svich's play comments on the boundaries that artists push in their work.

It's not quite the same project, of course. Hughes volunteered to host Bolt for the project, which is not for purchase. While Bolt's project actively engaged with the collector – requiring Hughes to follow a set of strict rules, and playing subtle pranks on her – the young man (James T. Majewski) purchased by collector Arden (Stephen F. Schmidt) is a passive art object called "Phase One," made so by "shock" artist Lizzie B. (Lisa Hodsoll). In Magnificent Waste, Arden purchases the androgynous young man, covered in glitter and candy wrappers, from Lizzie when he falls in love with him.

In April, I wrote about Magnificent Waste:

When she's not moralizing about drugs and wealth and celebrity, Svich is at her best when examining a timeless topic in art: The Gaze. How do we look at art, and what happens when it's able to look back at us, as "Phase One" does? Svich only scrapes the surface of some of the weightiest questions her play raises: Can an artist sell another human being as art, and if so, what kind of autonomy can that art object retain? When her art object is also a performer, how much can the artist claim the work as her own creation? "Art shouldn't speak," says Arden. "Shouldn't speak or shouldn't talk back?" says Lizzie. Majewski plays the young man as part passive object, part assertive performance artist, absorbing and returning their stares with equal intensity.

Arden, Lizzie and the young man in Magnificent Waste. (Photo: Photo by Stan Barouh)

Variations of those questions surfaced in Bolt's project, as well. The artist struggled with Hughes' lack of ownership over the experiment. "[It's as if] we've broken into her house … she's choosing to pretend it's an embarrassment," Bolt told me. In relational aesthetics, the medium with which Bolt says she has a complicated relationship, interactions and relationships make the art, so Hughes, and anyone else who interacted with Bolt became a part of her artistic process.

Like Lizzie, Bolt also dealt with an onslaught of media attention, but unlike the fictional artist, she was able to keep her cool. "How am I supposed to make anything when I'm the object of everything?" asks Lizzie, before beginning a self-destructive spiral that she emerges from by *spoiler alert!* putting herself in a plastic enclosure as "Phase Two" of her art. The artistic team of Factory 449 did not respond to a request for comment.