Missing Asher

2017/2019


Silvia Kolbowski

In 1990, for a group exhibition in a gallery in Soho, New York, I appropriated a documentary image from a 1973 conceptual work by artist Michael Asher, and made it the centerpoint of an artwork that looked at the dynamics of the group exhibition genre. My work was sold during the exhibition. Twenty-seven years later, I was asked to make a contribution to an exhibition on the work of artist Christopher DArcangelo and its relationship to the work of Asher, for which I made a powerpoint tracing the trajectory of my 1990 work and its surprising arc involving a double sale, the over-leveraging of a gallery, and a discarded artwork. In 2019, the 2017 powerpoint was expanded into a 16-minute video loop.

The 1990 project, Enlarged from the catalogue: Michael Asher..., can be seen here [http://silviakolbowski.com/projectDetail.cfm?ID=9]. 

The 2017 project was commissioned by Sebastien Pluot for You may add or subtract from the work: On the work of Christopher D'Arcangelo and Michael Asher, March 23-April 23, 2017. Mackey Garage Top, MAK center, Los Angeles. It was expanded as a commission for the exhibition "The Intolerable Straight Line," Galerie Art & Essai, University Rennes 2, Rennes, France, 2019, curated by Maud Jacquin and Sebastien Pluot.

Director/Editor: Silvia Kolbowski
Assistant Editor/Videographer/Sound recordist and mixer: Harold Batista

Edition of 3. Video loop; 16 mins.

An excerpt of the 2019 video can be viewed at:


ghd sale



© 2024 Silvia Kolbowski