Yvon Lambert Gallery booth D3
Frieze Art Fair 2009
15 - 18 October 2009
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Stefan Brüggemann's project, SHIFT will take place at the Yvon Lambert Gallery booth during the
Frieze Art Fair 2009. The project has been commissioned by Electra as part of the series of site-specific
commissions, Offer & Exchange: Sites of Negotiation in Contemporary Art curated by Daniel McClean and Lisa
Rosendahl. SHIFT consists of two artworks: one artwork has been created by Stefan Brüggemann; the other
artwork has been created by Robert Barry. The artists have agreed that authorship of the two artworks
will be transferred back and forth between them at the end of every five-year period, so that a work attributed
to Stefan Brüggemann will become a work attributed to Robert Barry at the end of every five years and vice-versa.
This process will continue indefinitely. The rules for the shifting authorship structure will be contained in two
certificates of authenticity, placed on the back frames of the artworks.
SHIFT is a site-specific project conceived in response to the site of the art fair. The artworks will be offered for sale at
the Frieze Art Fair by the Yvon Lambert Gallery, and sold at the current market value for each attributed artist. By creating a
kind of time-share system of authorship, SHIFT disrupts the conventional rules of authorship underpinning the attribution, valuation
and sale of artworks. In doing so, it invites speculation on the historical importance and market value of both artists' works over
time within the heightened context of the art fair.
SHIFT is the third part of the project Offer & Exchange: Sites of Negotiation in Contemporary Art, a series of site-specific commissions
inviting artists using legal contracts as artistic frameworks, curated by Daniel McClean and Lisa Rosendahl. Each commission has been
conceived for one of the following sites in which art is made visible by being exhibited, publicised, sold or collected: (i) the
commercial gallery; (ii) the corporate collection; (iii) the art fair; (iv) the public institution; (v) the private collection; (vi)
the auction house; (viii) the art magazine. SHIFT explores the site of the art fair and has been commissioned by Electra in
collaboration with Yvon Lambert Gallery.
Part one of the series was Mutual Release, a solo exhibition by Carey Young in the context of the commercial gallery, which took
place at the Thomas Dane Project Space in November/ December 2008. Part two is DEATH COUNTER, a new commission by Sanitago Sierra,
displayed on the façade of Hiscox Insurers' London office throughout 2009, in the context of the corporate collection.
Stefan Brüggemann was born in Mexico City in 1975 and has been exhibiting extensively both in Mexico and abroad
since the mid-1990s. In recent years he has received international recognition for his irreverent radical, and often
playful approaches to art production. Recent solo exhibitions include Stefan Brüggemann, Yvon Lambert Gallery, Paris (2009),
Monday Sies & Hoeke Gallery, Düsseldorf, Germany (2009).
Robert Barry was born in New York City in 1936. Since the late 1960s his practice has focused on non-material explorations, encompassing
installation, performance and various forms of invisible media. He held a key place in the early conceptual movement with exhibitions such
as When Attitudes Become Form... Kunsthalle Bern; The Institute of Contemporary Art, London (1969), Concept and Concept, Galleria San
Fedele, Milan and Projections: Anti-Materialism, La Jolla Museum of Art, La Jolla, California both in 1970.
