Do It - Hardcover

Garfinkel, Harold; Birnbaum, Daniel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 3865880010 ISBN 13: 9783865880017

Publisher: e-flux/Revolver, 2005

Synopsis

The Do It book contains artworks by more than 100 international artists in the form of do-it-yourself text instructions to be completed by the reader. Based on the traveling exhibition and e-flux online project curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, the book also includes a selection of essays and interviews, and offers comprehensive material on the groundbreaking show. Do It began in 1993 with a discussion among friends Christian Boltanski, Bertrand Lavier, and Hans Ulrich Obrist. All three had been interested in various forms of instructional procedures since the early 1970s, and that evening they spoke of the instructions contained within their own work. From this discussion arose the idea of an exhibition of do-it-yourself descriptions and procedural instructions. Since 1993, the exhibition has taken place in venues in more than 40 cities worldwide, including Palo Alto, Pittsburg, Calgary, Atlanta, Toronto, Andover, Glasgow, Reykjavik, Helsinki, Bangkok, Copenhagen, Edmonton, Paris, Mexico City, and Costa Rica. Meaning has been multiplied as various interpretations of the text accumulated while the exhibition traveled from venue to venue. The online component, which invites participants to upload images of the results of their chosen project, is less concerned with copies, images, or reproductions of artworks than with human interpretation.

About this title

About the Author

Marina Abramovic pioneered the use of performance as a visual art form. The body has always been both her subject and medium; exploring the physical and mental limits of her being, she has withstood pain, exhaustion and danger in the quest for transformation. Her career began in Belgrade during the early 1970s, and her work has since appeared at The Museum of Modern Art, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center and The New Museum in New York; the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and many others. She has won a Bessie, as the New York Dance and Performance Award is called, and the Venice Biennale's Lion D'Or.

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)

About this edition

• Publisher: e-flux/Revolver
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 3865880010
• ISBN 13: 9783865880017
• Binding: Turtleback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 370
• Editor: Obrist Hans Ulrich