"The exhibition Modus Operandi activates a well-known strategy from conceptual art using instructions and explores art by delegation. The artwork imagined by the artist is presented in form of a written or verbal statement to be executed by others. The instructions take form with advised experts such as the curator him or herself and his or her assistant, usually in dialogue with the artist. The instruction can be transmitted through: 'cards' as with the 'event scores' of the artist George Brecht or as in Lucy Lippard's 1969-74 'numbers' exhibition series; 'Certificates' for Sol Lewitt's 'instructions' or Laurence Weiner's 'statements'; 'Definitions / methods' for Claude Rutault; or in form of instructions communicated by telephone as in the mythical 'Art by Telephone' exhibition of 1969 and its recent 'Recalled' versions. Thus the artwork already exists in form of a description, and a collection of instructions makes it possible to constitute an exhibition.
This...exhibition by Société explores this dematerialisation of art and their activation around historic and current works. The show further put into perspective a type of conceptual art in connection with algorithmic art, a parallel that took already place in 1970 during the 'Software' exhibition, and as Sol LeWitt explains in Paragraphs on Conceptual Art (1967) 'When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art...the artist would select the basic form and rules that would govern the solution of the problem.'
The art by instruction nevertheless approaches the principle of a music score which needs each time a new interpretation. Here the work only exists through its transmission, its execution and the documentation of its reactivation. But the instructions of conceptual artists deliberately leave room for the subjectivity of the person who realises the final work. Consequently, the process contains several stages, including a dialogue necessary for the interpretation, which tends to an experience close to the format of the workshop and the performance for those who activate it and give it body. This "performative" aspect generates a variation of executions according to each context since the work is replayed according to its constraints, the actual references and the choices of those who follow them. Even if they literally follow the instructions and are in exchange with the artist, if the principle is fixed, the work varies slightly and gains significance at each iteration".
Curated by Société in collaboration with Gregory Lang - Solang Production Paris Brussels.
Artists: Pep Agut, Elena Bajo, Robert Barry, Julien Bismuth, Mel Bochner, Angela Bulloch, Alejandro Cesarco, Luis Paulo Costa, Claude Closky, Hanne Darboven, Alec De Busschère, Alessandro De Francesco, Francois Dallegret, Walter De Maria, Jan Dibbets, Detanico Lain, Pascal Dombis, Peter Downsbrough, Mark Geffriaud, Aurélie Godard, Nicolas Knight, LAb[au], David Lamelas, Sol LeWitt, Eva & Franco Mattes, Manfred Mohr, Gianni Motti, Paulo Nazareth, Dennis Oppenheim, Casey Reas, Claude Rutault, Roland Sabatier, Peter Scott, Daniel Spœrri & Robert Filliou, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, UBERMORGEN, Oriol Vilanova, Lawrence Weiner, Ian Wilson, Erwin Wurm,... besides others.
Entrada actualizada el el 11 abr de 2017
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