FOR SALE
Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Lisbon, Portugal
September 20 – October 20, 2007
Curated by Jens Hoffmann
Exhibition press release:
Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art is pleased to present FOR SALE, an exhibition curated by Jens Hoffmann with works by Art & Language, Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadila, Tauba Auerbach, John Baldessari, Daniel Buren, Arabella Campbell, Maria Eichhorn, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Ceal Floyer, Andrea Fraser & Jeff Preiss, Ryan Gander, Jordan Kantor, John Knight, Louise Lawler, Tim Lee, Renata Lucas, Shana Lutker, Kris Martin, Jonathan Monk, Roman Ondak, Raymond Pettibon, Tino Sehgal, Andreas Slominski, Ron Terada, Mario Garcia Torres, and Carey Young. Prompted by the need to engage and address location in his curatorial work—in this case, that of the gallery — this gathering of around thirty international artists presents instances where the status of the artwork and its display in a commercial setting is conceptualized and foregrounded.
Sentient of the reality of a booming art market, the multiplicity of roles within the art world and their conflicted and at times elusive relations (artists, dealers, collectors and curators) Jens Hoffmann has aimed to critically reflect on his position within this domain and to provide the opportunity for artists to do so as well by inviting them to create or participate with artworks that investigate and address the fact that they are up for sale and displayed in a commercial gallery context. Crucially, none of the works in the exhibition can be bought individually and the show can only be acquired as a whole. This fact underlines the focus of FOR SALE, as the commercial enterprise of a for-profit gallery, but it also obstructs the eventual purchase of the art works—it is clearly more expensive and far more complex to acquire a whole show rather than an individual work. While seemingly completely embracing the commercial aspect of the gallery, FOR SALE in fact tries to obstruct routine business. Questions that the exhibition raises range from an investigation into the relationship of artists, dealers and collectors and the changing status of an artwork during its move from an artist’s studio into a gallery, to the undecided relationship between curators and the commercial art world.
Artists: Art & Language, Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadila, Tauba Auerbach, John Baldessari, Daniel Buren, Arabella Campbell, Maria Eichhorn, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Ceal Floyer, Andrea Fraser & Jeff Preiss, Ryan Gander, Jordan Kantor, John Knight, Louise Lawler, Tim Lee, Renata Lucas, Shana Lutker, Kris Martin, Jonathan Monk, Roman Ondak, Raymond Pettibon, Tino Sehgal, Andreas Slominski, Ron Terada, Mario Garcia Torres, and Carey Young.