In Deed: Certificates of Authenticity in Art
13 January - 10 February 2012
Artists' certificates of authenticity have played a crucial role in contemporary art during the past five decades. These certi-ficates, and other administrative documentary forms, gained prominence during the 1960s, when artists were experimenting with radically altered production methods and even challenging the very physicality of the art object. Sometimes, certificates come to stand in for the artwork itself, while referring to it, serving as its deed, legal statement, and fiscal invoice. In this exhibition, dozens of documents have been digitally scanned, and are presented in facsimile format.
They offer a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes workings of many contemporary artists, exposing what is usually protected securely in inventory files, yet what in many cases actually con-stitutes the work of art. These documents serve at least two crucial functions—they validate the authorship and originality of the work, and they allow the work of art to be positioned in the marketplace as a branded product, no matter how immaterial or transient this product may be. They may also prescribe a set of instructions to be followed in order to make the work, which has been carried out in this presentation in four cases.
Certification, like delegation, is the new frontier—along with the battle on copyright boundaries—in the ever-changing landscape of intellectual property.
Susan Hapgood and Cornelia Lauf, Curators
Artists in the exhibition
Ruben Aubrecht
Judith Barry
Robert Barry/Stefan Brüggemann
Hemali Bhuta and Shreyas Karle
Pierre Bismuth
Marinus Boezem
George Brecht
Daniel Buren
André Cadere
Marcel Duchamp
Maria Eichhorn
Urs Fischer
Dan Flavin
Andrea Fraser
Liam Gillick
The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation
Hans Haacke
Edward Kienholz
Yves Klein
Joseph Kosuth
Sol LeWitt
Ken Lum
Piero Manzoni
Gordon Matta-Clark
Josiah McElheny and Allan Kaprow
Jonathan Monk
Robert Morris
Antoni Muntadas
Yoko Ono
Cesare Pietroiusti
Adrian Piper
Emilio Prini
Robert Projansky and Seth Siegelaub
Raqs Media Collective
Robert Rauschenberg
Sharmila Samant
Joe Scanlan
David Shrigley
Daniel Spoerri
Haim Steinbach
Superflex
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Ben Vautier
Lawrence Weiner
Franz West
Ian Wilson
Cerith Wyn Evans
Carey Young
Andrea Zittel
Heimo Zobernig
Exhibition itinerary
De Kabinetten van de Vleeshal
Middelburg, The Netherlands
September 10 - October 9, 2011
Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa
Venice
October 14 - November 4, 2011
KHOJ International Artists’ Association
New Delhi
November 18 - December 16, 2011
Mumbai Art Room
Mumbai
January 13 - February 10, 2012
Nero HQ
Rome
February 3 - March 2, 2012
John M. Flaxman Library Special Sollections, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago
March 30 ‑ April 28, 2012
SALT Beyoğlu
Istanbul
Spring 2012
The Drawing Center
New York
Fall 2012