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