Artist's Strip Poker Game Designed to Make a Statement

A performance art piece in New York City is attempting to use a game of strip poker in order to make a point about social inequality.

Artist Zefrey Throwell, creator of the performance piece “I’ll Raise You One,” will have 48 participants competing in a week-long poker tournament that takes place just inside a glass window for the entire world to see in Tribeca.

It may be difficult to see how a strip poker game qualifies as art, but close observers may be able to see a few points being made in an otherwise normal – albeit revealing – poker game. The players who are participating were given no guidelines on what to wear to the game. Some came in a normal outfit like the one they would wear every day, while others came into the game with several layers to shed.

The idea is to make a statement about the nature of capitalism. Everyone is expected to play by the same rules, and are often held to the same standards of success; however, not everyone begins the game – or life – with the same means. Those who begin with the most resources are overwhelming more likely to come out winners.

The strip poker tournament began on November 12, and will continue through November 19. The games will be played in the front window at the Art In General Gallery, from 10:30 am to 6 pm each day.

The strip poker tournament is not Throwell’s first performance piece that involved nudity. Earlier this year, he organized a performance known as “Ocularpation: Wall Street,” in which 50 people who were dressed as bankers and custodians stripped in the middle of Wall Street.