Vleeshal

IN DEED: CERTIFICATES OF AUTHENTICITY IN ART
curator: Susan Hapgood and Cornelia Lauf
10 September - 9 October, 2011

The Foundation for Visual Arts Middelburg (Stichting Beeldende Kunst Middelburg) presents the exhibition In Deed: Certificates of Authenticity in Art in De Kabinetten van De Vleeshal, Zusterstraat 7, Middelburg. It opens on saturday 10 september at 4 p.m. As part of the exhibition a publication will be presented.

At 5 p.m. there will be a symposium in De Vleeshal, with curators Susan Hapgood and Cornelia Lauf and with special guests Seth Siegelaub and Daniel McClean.

‘Certificates of authenticity are a critical aspect of art works today’

Certificates 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 fiscal invoice. Certificates 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, certificates point the focus elsewhere, and
prove that material or aesthetic qualities in an object sometimes do not suffice in constituting the work of art. In our globalized, capitalist present, the certificate 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.
Certificates have legal and ontological implications that make them fascinating documents of changing attitudes toward art and the role of artists.

Providing examples of artists’ certificates from the past fifty years, this exhibition will reveal how roles have shifted and developed, as well as how the materials and content of art have changed too. Concise didactic texts will assist the viewer in contextualizing each inclusion in the presentation. Ranging from the most official looking printed documents, with their imprimatur of institutionalization, to dashed-off notations that perform the same definitive function in constituting and defining the parameters of a given art work, this exhibition will interest a broad swath of audiences, ranging from art aficionados to lawyers, students to aesthetes.

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