In Deed:
Certifi­cates of Authenticity in Art

SALT Beyoğlu, Level 1

Curated by Susan Hapgood and Cornelia Lauf

In Deed: Certificates of Authenticity in Art is an exhibition of artist certificates. The exhibition focuses on the little known territory of certificates that serve as deeds for artworks, legal statements, and fiscal invoices that can both embody the artwork itself and refer to it at the same time.

Certificates by artists validate the authorship and originality of the work. They allow the work of art to be positioned in the marketplace as a branded product -no matter how immaterial or transient that product may be. Whereas the inherent importance of any given work of art should be self-evident to the connoisseur’s eye, certificates shift the focus elsewhere, and prove that material or aesthetic qualities in an object sometimes do not suffice in constituting the work of art. In our globalized, capitalist present, the certificate and its implications for artistic thinking have become an instrument of business enterprise, as well as a philosophical statement about the nature of an artwork. Certificates have legal and ontological implications that make them fascinating documents of changing attitudes toward art and the role of artists.

The exhibition provides examples of artists’ certificates from the past fifty years including artists in the concurrent exhibition İstanbul Eindhoven-SALTVanAbbe: 68-89 at SALT Beyoğlu. The exhibition reveals how roles have shifted and developed, as well as how the materials and content of art have changed. Ranging from the most official looking printed documents, with their imprimatur of institutionalization, to dashed-off notations that perform the same definitive function in constituting and defining the parameters of a given artwork.

Curated by Susan Hapgood and Cornelia Lauf, In Deed: Certificates of Authenticity in Art, is a traveling exhibition previously held at the De Kabinetten Van De Vleeshal, Middelburg; Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice; Nero HQ, Rome; KHOJ International Artists’ Association, New Delhi; Mumbai Art Room; School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue with texts by the curators Lorenzo Benedetti, Martha Buskirk, and Daniel McClean.


Artists in the Exhibition
Ruben Aubrecht, Judith Barry, Robert Barry/Stefan Brüggemann, Hemali Bhuta & Shreyas Karle, Pierre Bismuth, Marinus Boezem, George Brecht, Daniel Buren, André Cadere, Marcel Duchamp, Maria Eichhorn, Urs Fischer, Dan Flavin, Andrea Fraser, Liam Gillick, The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation, Hans Haacke, Edward Kienholz, Yves Klein, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt, Ken Lum, Piero Manzoni, Gordon Matta-Clark, Josiah McElheny & Allan Kaprow, Jonathan Monk, Robert Morris, Antoni Muntadas, Yoko Ono, Cesare Pietroiusti, Adrian Piper, Emilio Prini, Robert Projansky & Seth Siegelaub, Raqs Media Collective, Robert Rauschenberg, Sharmila Samant, Joe Scanlan, David Shrigley, Daniel Spoerri, Haim Steinbach, Superflex, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Ben Vautier, Lawrence Weiner, Franz West, Ian Wilson, Cerith Wyn Evans, Carey Young, Andrea Zittel, Heimo Zobernig