A Constructed Situation and a Cotton Banner

• Main Author: Joey Orr
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Gothenburg 2021-08-01
• Series: Parse Journal
• Subjects: collections; constructed situation; contemporary art; curatorial research; dematerialized art; exhibition; institutional critique; museum studies; social practice; textiles
• Online Access: https://parsejournal.com/article/a-constructed-situation-and-a-cotton-banner/

In 2009, British artist Jeremy Deller’s work It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq entered the permanent collections of three US museums. It is described by the collecting institutions as a “constructed situation and cotton banner.” Curatorial research intended to address questions about its future exhibition instead generated further questions about the banner’s condition and location, the status of the work’s material aspect, and the parameters of particular modes of dematerialized artwork more broadly. The analytical framework is based on notions of care and feminist contributions on the centrality of maintenance. This article posits that both material and immaterial aspects can remain at play in a work of social practice, and its operations exceed its exhibitionary phase.