M HKA Ensembles

° 1980

Born in CA, lives in Berlin (DE).

Josh Schwebel is a Canadian conceptual artist who works through intervention, institutional critique, and techniques of counterfeit. His work takes the form of tactical interventions that show the symbolic and political contradictions of contemporary art. It operates in response to the institutions in which he is hosted, using refusals and absences as tools for making structural limits visible. He often embeds his work within the administrative processes of the institution, blurring the boundaries between artistic and administrative tasks. His work engages with the various structures that construct the encounter with art (administrative, architectural, financial, bureaucratic, etc.), instituting situations for uncertainty, doubt, and self-reflection on the institutional border of art. These processes, and the decisions made by the personnel, consequently assimilated into the project, make visible the disjunctions that lie between the legitimating discourse of arts institutions and the actual working conditions and practices manifested by these institutions.