duh? art and stupidity

Including works by Tariq Alvi, BANK, Michael Bracewell, Archie & Edith Bunker, Werner Büttner & Albert Oehlen, Bonnie Camplin, Cecelia Condit, The Cockettes, Claude Faraldo, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Ryan Gander, Mario Garcia Torres, Isa Genzken, Gaylen Gerber, Judith Hopf, Larry Johnson, Erik van Lieshout, Kalup linzy, Clunie Reid, Kim Schoen, Lily van der Stokker, Annika Ström, Sturtevant, Rosemarie Trockel, Tomi Ungerer, Andy Warhol.

‘duh?’ looks at stupidity as a subject and a tactic of art making, with a particular focus on its relationship to the politics and performance of identity. High culture is meant to keep its audience from being stupid, but artists have repeatedly drawn upon stupidity, or playing stupid, as a form of dissidence, irreverence or as a means to cast off received thinking.

To work from a position of stupidity would appear to be a good way to counter knowingness and intellectual superiority, but how can artists adopt stupidity as a strategy without turning it into cleverness? Even if you don’t play stupid, how do you make art about stupidity without declaring yourself to be smart? If there are forms of intellectualism that, through being inflexible and unresponsive, appear stupid, then what exactly is stupidity anyway?

Developed from Paul Clinton’s research into stupidity, art and identity.

Paul Clinton is a writer and is the assistant editor of Frieze and Frieze Masters magazines. He has taught on art, stupidity and queer theory at Goldsmiths College and the University of Manchester. In 2013 he edited a special issue of the philosophy and critical theory journal parallax on stupidity, and in 2014 the South London Gallery staged a day-long event around his research on this subject. In the same year he organised the conference Shimmering World, which featured presentations by artists Ed Atkins, David Panos and Hannah Sawtell. His catalogue essays include on the work of artists Bonnie Camplin, and Jacopo Miliani. Previous speaking engagements have taken place at the Frieze Art Fair, ICA, Tate Modern, Whitstable Biennale and Whitechapel Gallery, amongst other venues. He was also a founding member of the band No Bra, co-writing several songs on the album Dance and Walk, and with Patrick Wolf he formed the band Maison Crimenaux.