Exhibition: In Deed: Certificates of Authenticity in Art

The Foundation for Visual Arts Middelburg has mounted an exhibition on certificates of authenticity and art. The exhibition runs from Sept. 10 through Oct. 9, 2011. Thanks to Lauren van Haaften Schick for the heads up on this one.

From their website:

Certi?cates of authenticity are a critical aspect of art works today. They often even embody the artwork itself, while referring to it, serving as its deed, legal statement, and ?scal invoice. Certi?cates by artists 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 that product may be. Whereas the inherent importance of any given work of art should be self-evident to the connoisseur’s eye, certi?cates point the focus elsewhere, and prove that material or aesthetic qualities in an object sometimes do not suf?ce in constituting the work of art. In our globalized, capitalist present, the certi?cate and its implications about artistic thinking have become an instrument of business nterprise, as well as a philosophical statement about the nature of an artwork. Certi?cates have legal and ontological implications that make them fascinating documents of changing attitudes toward art and the role of artists.

Artists exhibiting:

Ruben Aubrecht
Judith Barry
Robert Barry/Stefan Brüggemann
Hemali Bhuta and Shreyas Karle
Pierre Bismuth
George Brecht
Marinus Boezem
Daniel Buren
Andre Caderé
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
Cerith Wyn Evans
Carey Young
Andrea Zittel
Heimo Zobernig

Tags: Art Law, certificate of authenticity, consignment agreements, Contracts, language, sergio munoz sarmiento, text, written agreements