Art, art, object breaks the boundaries between art and the everyday by accessing artworks outside the established gallery with the aim of deinstitutionalizing the artist.
Entering an art gallery is the equivalent of accessing a different dimension, separate from the real world. In this new reality most of us are assigned the role of silent, careful explorers of the space and the objects present within it. The role imposed on the artist is instead one of creator, thinker, author and genius. The figure of the “artist genius” feeds into the belief that artists are detached from the real world as entities which experience, theorize and process reality in a unique way which is understood as absolute truth. This is what is intended as the institutionalization of the artist.
The artist’s institutionalization is problematic. Although artists do present their own interpretation of different aspects of reality, one often oversees that their source of inspiration is reality itself. Inspiration can take the form of diverse external factors which already demystify the role of the “artist genius” and single creator of the work. Artists Konstantinos Irakleous, Martha Scott and Yihang Yuan break the boundaries between the everyday and art through performative acts which reveal their shared authorships with objects belonging to day-to-day life. The documentation of these interventions shows different ways in which the artists give found objects a new meaning without imposing their status as “artist genius” upon them. Digital videos and images propose new ways of rethinking the use of ordinary objects. The deinstitutionalizing of the artists re-connects their artworks to the real world which is where the work was created and now accessed by the audience.
In a time where art institutions were forced to close art had to find its way of reaching the public outside its controlling rooms. By viewing the work on their phone screens, the audience can momentarily own, interpret, understand and engage with the work without the control an art gallery setting imposes on the encounter between viewer and artwork.
Curator of the project: Lucrezia Di Canio
London, UK. November 2021
Konstantinos Irakleous
Martha Scott
Yihang Yuan
Video No1
Video No2
