Double Agent

Agent looks at art works and collaborative projects in which the artist uses other people as a medium, raising questions of performance and authorship. The exhibition investigates the issues of ethics and representation that ensue when the artist is no longer the central agent in his or her own work, but operates through a range of individuals, communities, and surrogates. This book features an introduction by the curators; texts on the exhibiting artists, including transcripts of artists’ performances; and concludes with a section of contextual material that is thematic in nature, and address strategies of mediation, delegation and collaboration in contemporary art, as well as the promotion of unpredictability and risk. Published on the occasion of the ICA exhibition Double Agent, which subsequently toured in 2008 to Mead Gallery, Coventry, and BALTIC, Gateshead.