In its continued emphasis on an art of ideas—inherited from the legacies of conceptual and post-conceptual art—contemporary art often enlists objects to perform as evidence within constellations of research and inquiry. Whether they are borrowed from everyday life or sculpted into new forms, art objects are tasked with conjuring the descriptions that accompany them. What challenges does such mediation pose to the inherent muteness of objects? How do artists choose to speak on behalf of reticent artifacts and the otherwise inert by-products of material culture and the natural world? In what ways do museums and other institutions participate in these arrangements?

Stories of Almost Everyone is organized around the premise that contemporary art objects possess narrative histories and inner lives that the conventions of display can only, at best, approximate. This exhibition and publication address the means by which a broad range of contemporary artworks and artifacts traffic in meaning and mythology in equal measure. These varied approaches are as emboldened by a faith in objects to communicate their value as they are skeptical of the conditions of museological mediation and art’s promise to convey meaning.

Organized by Aram Moshayedi, with contributions by Julie Ault, Hannah Black, CAConrad, Jay Chung and Q Takeki Maeda, Emanuele Coccia, Helmut Draxler, Dan Fox, Donatien Grau, Boris Groys, Bruce Hainley, Gabriela Jauregui, Hassan Khan, Wayne Koestenbaum, Chris Kraus, Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer, Akira Mizuta Lippit, Daniel McClean, W. J. T. Mitchell, Sohrab Mohebbi, Linda Norden, Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi, Charles Ray, Mayer Rus, Lynne Tillman, and Alaka Wali.

ISBN: 978-3-7913-5690-7
7 ½ × 5 ⅛ in. (portrait)
Hardcover
272 pages
$34.95