Featuring:
Robert Smithson
Robert Filliou
Banksy
Ben Vautier
David Hammons
Albert Alston
CapOne
Antony Gormley
Dieter Roth
Endre Tot
Speed Cameras
Art is a question of …
Text: Anne Vieth
In 1972, Ben Vautier circulated the statement “Art is only a question of signature and date” in the form of a silkscreen on paper, making an ironic attempt to define art through text and image, as he often did with his text-based works. When Brad Downey told me about his exhibition concept for Kages GOLD, this work by Vautier came to mind, as both Vautier’s graphic and Downey’s exhibition irreverently question canonized ideas of art. Vautier expressed his idea of conceptual art briefly and succinctly through his work, whereas Downey expands on this concept through a series of poignant works that revolve around questions of authorship—i.e., “the signature”—and temporal location through the dating of the work.
With his principle of “forced collaboration,” Downey refers to the works of other artists. However, he does not do so in the way that is characteristic of the art world. Instead, Downey intentionally crosses the “demarcation lines” of other artworks. By using the works of colleagues as starting points for new works, and by revealing and deploying this appropriation as a strategy, he expands and relativizes the concept of artistic authorship.
This relativization can also be seen in the dating and signing of works. This is evident in Brad Downey’s engagement with a series of graphics by Dieter Roth. Downey acquired several prints on which Roth signed with different names, sometimes Diter Rot, sometimes Heinrich Schwarz, and sometimes Dieter Roth, and also attached different dates, namely 1977 and 1992. This approach by Roth makes it clear that he did not attach particular importance to the idea of the unique artist or artwork. Downey pursues this approach by adding additional layers to Roth’s graphics, further strengthening the dissolution of the meaning of signature and date. He created new printing plates based on the acquired Roth graphics and signed the resulting prints as Henry Black, dating them 2023. Thus, several artists’ names and various dates are condensed into a kind of chimera that also tests the preconceptions held by contemporary art viewers.
These works can be read as an impetus to pay greater attention to mutual conditionality—to being interwoven—and to perceive connections not only within a linear structure.
Perhaps art is, most of all, a question of rhizomatic linking…?
