Full Description
Based in London and Berlin, Michael Elmgreen (b. 1961, Denmark) and Ingar Dragset (b. 1969, Norway) have worked as a collaborative team since the mid-1990s. In 2006, their 'Welfare Show' at the Serpentine Gallery invited viewers to consider societal power structures, including economic disparity, health care, immigration, travel, prostitution, the police state and the role art plays in society. The duo were awarded Special Mention at the 2009 Venice Biennale for 'The Collectors', their highly elaborate and widely acclaimed exhibition for the Danish and Nordic Pavilions, while their 2011 work 'Celebrity: The One and the Many' addresses rumour-mongering, life in the public eye, the machinations of the media and its formation of myths. This book thoroughly documents these projects, showing how the artists' sculptures and installations reconfigure the familiar with characteristic wit and subversive humour. The book also includes interviews with the duo and with French philosopher Paul Virilio.
Contents
The Welfare Show (Bergen Kunsthall, Serpentine Gallery) * The Welfare Show by Shannon Jackson * Utopias and the Welfare State by Tony Benn * The Collectors (The Danish Pavilion, The Nordic Pavilion) * Another Death in Venice by Dominic Eichler * Living in or with a Collection? by Charles Arsene-Henry * Celebrity - The One and the Many (ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe) * The Star and the Audience: Disinformation and the Logic of the Swarm by Max Otte * Celebrity and Populism with regard to Pierre Bourdieu's Economy of Immaterial Wealth by Georg Franck * A Scene from the Marriage of Elmgreen & Dragset by Sarah Thornton * Celebration - The World of Appearance Paul Virilio in conversation with Sacha Goldman * The Society of Excessive Attention by Bernard Poerksen and Wolfgang Krischke
