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September 24, 2012 – Review
"Without (Jonathan Monk)"
Matteo Lucchetti
With Olivier Babin, Pierre Bismuth, Christian Burnoski, Ryan Gander, Alex O., Dan Rees, Ariel Schlesinger, Yann Sérandour, Markus Sixay, Ron Terada, & works from the collection of Jonathan Monk
In Ecce Bombo, a cult, late-70s movie by Nanni Moretti, there is an iconic scene in which the protagonist, Moretti himself, is on his way to a party. He calls a friend and asks: “Will I draw more attention to myself if I actually come to the party and spend all night in a corner, or if I don’t show up at all?” If Jonathan Monk were Moretti and the party in question were the exhibition “Without (Jonathan Monk),” the answer would be clear: by not participating in the show at all, Monk definitely stood out more than if he had actually been present.
At first glance, the curatorial structure dictated by the proclaimed non-appearance of an artist reminded me of the last Istanbul Biennial, in which curators Jens Hoffmann and Adriano Pedrosa wove together a group show that ultimately created an innovative retrospective of Felix Gonzales-Torres without there being a single work of his on view. But the connections between these two shows stop there, not only because Monk is very much …