Elmgreen & Dragset: The Welfare Show, 2005

Author:

Elmgreen & Dragset

Details:

Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, BAWAG Foundation, Wien, The Power Plant, Toronto, and Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne (160 p, colour & black and white illustrations)

ISBN:

3-88375-967-8

Price:

$49.95

A catalogue accompanying the exhibition of the same name at The Power Plant in 2005, The Welfare Show, is an encyclopedic document that inspects our societal systems. Such issues as gay adoption, gender, nationalism, social services, tourism, and xenophobia, are listed in alphabetical order as a navigational tool through the book, and are each dealt with as issues to be contested, or examined. Michael Elmgreen and Ingmar Dragset are artists who began collaborating in 1995. Their installations and performances rotate around a series of "powerless structures" that challenge established ideas of architectural and social structures within the public realm and even within the institution of the art gallery.