The Artist is Present features more than 30 artists, showcasing site-specific and existing works that question the most hallowed principles of art in the modern era: originality, intention, expression. In an era where everything is endlessly reproduced, nothing really keeps the aura of originality.
In the words of Michele: "The only belief remains the conviction that originality is definitely overrated." To expound on his point, the show's logic contends that originality can be reached through the act of repetition and, furthermore, that originals can be preserved through copies.
Can the "fake" surpass the importance of the original artwork? "It consists in a physical immersion in the reign of imitation, a land where the core values that used to identify with an artwork in the Western world, such as originality, intention, expression and authorship, are dismantled," says Michele.
The cynic would argue that it's also, subliminally, a very clever commercial angle to take for Gucci. Michele is, after all, the man who rebranded a recent Gucci collection with the moniker "Guccy" emblazoned across it as a way of illustrating the point. And his co-conspirator in the exhibition, Cattelan, has never been the shy and retiring type in matters of appropriation, either.
