The Ordering of the Beautiful alias The Passion of Participation alias Horizontal Vampirism alias Five Doors alias The Quarrel of the Diagonal alias Almost Nothing for Sale alias Yesterday's Snow ... a collaborative show by Franz West and friends
With works by: Anthony Auerbach, Reinhard Bernsteiner, Songül Boyraz, Gelatin, Heiri Häfliger, Peter Höll, Sarah Lucas, Hans Riedel, Jessica Shaw, Tamuna Sirbiladze, Bob & Roberta Smith, Roman Vasseur, Jessica Voorsanger, Zlatan Vukosavljevic, Julia Wayne, Franz West, Lansheng Zhang
Despite the expectation of the artist to be a sole trader and the purveyor of the original and the authentic, collaboration, conversation, appropriation, quotation, incorporation and interference between artists was never really repressed even by the cult of genius. Nonetheless, collections predominate over collectives and have kept curators in work.
This show, coinciding with a major retrospective by Franz West at the Whitechapel, underlines collaborative aspects of West's work. When West wanted to use colour in his sculptures and did not feel he had the skill for it, he simply asked another artist to do it for him. Sculpture and furniture are usually the work of many hands. West also, from time to time, incorporates pieces by other artists in arrangements of his own work. In reaction, he says, to the 'omnipotence of the curator' West started making exhibitions of work by other artists with whom he has been associated in various ways. The present show, as its titles suggest (the decision was to add more titles as they came up rather than try to decide which one was most appropriate) refuses curatorial coherence. Instead it makes sense (if it makes sense) through more or less tenuous connections between people, a gesture in the space, and ad hoc adjustments. It thus reasserts the prerogative of the artist while also disturbing received notions of authorship.
