Do It: The Compendium - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1938922018 ISBN 13: 9781938922015

Publisher: Distributed Art Publishers, 2013

Synopsis

Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, ‘Do It’ began in Paris in 1993 as a conversation between the artists Christian Boltanski and Bertrand Lavier and Obrist himself, who was experimenting with how exhibition formats could be rendered more flexible and open ended. The discussion led to the question of whether a show could take ‘scores’ or written instructions by artists as a point of departure, which could be interpreted anew each time they were enacted. To test the idea, Obrist invited 13 artists to send instructions, which were then translated into nine different languages and circulated internationally as a book. Within two years, ‘Do It’ exhibitions were being created all over the world by realizing the artists’ instructions. With every version of the exhibition new instructions were added, so that today more than 300 artists have contributed to the project. Constantly evolving and morphing into different versions of itself, ‘Do It’ has grown to encompass ‘Do It (Museum)’, ‘Do It (Home)’, ‘Do It (TV)’, ‘Do It (Seminar)’ as well as some ‘Anti-Do Its’, a ‘Philosophy Do It’ and, most recently, a ‘UNESCO Children’s Do It’. Nearly 20 years after the initial conversation took place, ‘Do It’ has been featured in at least 90 different locations worldwide. To mark the twentieth anniversary of this landmark project, this new publication presents the history of this ambitious enterprise and gives new impetus to its future. It includes an archive of artists’ instructions, essays contextualizing ‘Do It’, documentation and photographs from the history of the exhibition and new instructions by 50 artists from all over the world selected by Obrist.

About this title

Review

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of Obrist's ongoing curatorial experiment, this anthology collects 250 "scores"--written instructions for the production of an artwork--from the artists invited to participate in the 50 iterations of the globally traveling "do it" exhibition to date.--Editors "Art in America "

Obrist recruited more than 60 artists (icluding Ai Weiwei and David Lynch) to write instructionsfor creating all manner of works, which have been interpreted by others and put on display alongside those directions.--Jonathan Aprea "Time Out Magazine "

Edition details

• Publisher: Distributed Art Publishers
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1938922018
• ISBN 13: 9781938922015
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448
• Editor: Hans Ulrich Obrist