Certificates of authenticity in art. An exhibition of artist certificates. It focuses on the little known territory of certificates that serve as deeds for artworks, legal statements, and fiscal invoices that can both embody the artwork itself and refer to it at the same time.
Curated by Susan Hapgood and Cornelia Lauf
In Deed: Certificates of Authenticity in Art is an exhibition of artist certificates. The exhibition focuses on the little known territory of certificates that serve as deeds for artworks, legal statements, and fiscal invoices that can both embody the artwork itself and refer to it at the same time.
Certificates by artists validate the authorship and originality of the work. 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 shift 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 for artistic thinking have become an instrument of business enterprise, 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.
The exhibition provides examples of artists’ certificates from the past fifty years including artists in the concurrent exhibition İstanbul Eindhoven-SALTVanAbbe: 68-89 at SALT Beyoğlu. The exhibition reveals how roles have shifted and developed, as well as how the materials and content of art have changed. 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 artwork.
Image: Marcel Duchamp, Tzanck Check (detail from Boîte-en-valise [Box in a Valise]), 1919/1938
Printed facsimile, two-color offset lithograph with hand stamped number, 21x38.2 cm
Courtesy Francis M. Naumann Fine Art, New York
© Succession Marcel Duchamp, 2011, ADAGP, Paris/ARS, New York
Opening May 30th 12:00 pm - 8:00 pm
SALT
Bankalar Caddesi 11 Karaköy 34420 İstanbul Türkiye
Hours: Tues-Sat 12.00-20.00, Sun 10.30-18.00
SALT is free