I would prefer not to. A taxonomy of artists without works

Abstract

Il presente intervento è relativo ad un progetto in corso da diversi anni per la costituzione di un thesaurus di artisti senza opere la cui costruzione si misura con i temi della produttività in ambito artistico. Si parla di artisti che hanno riflettuto sulle problematiche della produzione, che si sono misurati, che hanno fallito o che semplicemente si sono interrogati sulla necessità di produrre e distribuire le opere.

The main purpose of this survey is to present an on-going project of constitution of a Thesaurus of artists without works and to present artists who dealt with such a complex and tortuous subject as productivity, and who challenged, defied or simply questioned the need to produce and to deliver work, both in its material and immaterial significance. Many are the reasons that lead a creator to go against the conventional ways of conceiving, producing and providing work, or that simply offer another possibility of conceiving the figure of the artist, one that does not need to offer art in order to become so. In some cases, there is an ethical, political, social or cultural need that leads to the denial of production. In other cases it is evident that irony and an acute sense of humour are at the base of such denial or refusal to present objects or actions, as if the artist intended to frustrate the viewer’s expectations and to play with them. What is sure is that in the age of self-publicity and communication, there lies an untold history of art: that written by the gestures and postures of all the effacing artists, and this is what this research is about.