Just when you thought The Grand Tour couldn’t get any grander.
I am psyched, though no longer quite as surprised as you might be right now, to announce that Our Guernica Cycle – Ivanka / Merkel 2017.03.17 will be included in an exhibition at Musée des beaux-arts, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. Titled “Répliques : l’original à l’épreuve de l’art”, the show explores the history, distribution, and appreciation of art through replicas, duplication, and appropriation. It includes post-war works from the collection of Olivier Mosset, which the artist donated to the Musée in 2007, as well as other historical and contemporary works from the permanent collection. The show is organized by Gabriel Umstätter.
When the Musée folks emerged to identify themselves from the Kickstarter campaign, there were a few harried weeks to get the concept, the image, the object, and the logistics all pinned down in time for the opening. I must say I’m impressed by the cool confidence, precision and thoughtfulness, and I’m relieved that what was essentially a wild test of a print turned out great. [Did I bury the lede here? Has a museum ever acquired a work straight out of a Kickstarter campaign before?]
The Musée will feature a full-scale, Renaissance Edition print of the Ivanka/Merkel painting. I imagine the conceptual disaster-in-the-making of an outsourced painting of a crucial historical instant made in the style of a disgraced, redemption-seeking politician and reproduced following the modified pyramid schema of America’s most mindlessly popular painter offers many, many entry points for a discourse on the moment. But then again, from this artist list, I’m sure there’s no shortage of eye-popping insights:
Greg Allen, Carl Andre [! -ed.], Ian Anüll, John Armleder, Olivier Babin, Robert Ballagh, Aimé Barraud, Francis Baudevin, René Bauermeister, Ben, Mike Bidlo, Julius von Bismarck, Nicolas Boissonnas, Bryan Cera, Jerome Cavaliere, César, John Dogg (Colin de Land & Richard Prince), Gérard Collin-Thiébaut, le Dessinateur (automate Jaquet-Droz), Marcel Duchamp, Gretchen Faust, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Sylvie Fleury, Christian Floquet, Camille Graeser, Peter Halley, Charles Humbert, Donald Judd, Jean-Blaise Junod, Edouard Kaiser, Scott Kildall, Frank Kozik, Joseph Kosuth, L/B (Sabina Lang & Daniel Baumann), Alix Lambert, Bertrand Lavier, Louise Lawler, Jørgen Leth, Sherrie Levine, Claude Loewer, Michael Mandiberg, Jean-Luc Manz, Allan Mc Collum, Claude Mellan, Ana Mendieta [No? I guess I added that one. -ed.]Mathieu Mercier, Olivier Mosset, John Nixon, Richard Pettibone, Raoul Pictor (Hervé Graumann & Mathieu Cherubini), Bernard Piffaretti, André Ramseyer, Martial Raysse, Léopold Robert, Walter Robinson, Norman Rockwell, Bob Ross, Claude Rutault, Yara Said, le Tampographe Sardon, Lily van der Stokker, Elaine Sturtevant, Peter Tillessen, Corinne Vionnet, Wallace & Donohue, Joan Waltemath, Andy Warhol, Lawrence Weiner, Dick Whyte, Ian Wilson, Madeleine Woog.
I am as humbled as I am mystified by the sense of accomplishment this situation gives me right now.
Répliques : l’original à l’épreuve de l’art, Musée des beaux-arts, La Chaux-de-Fonds, 30 June – 29 Oct 2017 [chaux-de-fonds.ch]
Related: Our Guernica, After Our PIcasso Kickstarter campaign page [kickstarter]