Stories of Almost Everyone

Stories of Almost Everyone is a group exhibition about our willingness to believe the stories that are conveyed by contemporary art objects. Exploring a dominant impulse in sculpture of the last decade, the exhibition highlights the work of more than 40 international artists to address the relationship between material objects and the stories we tell about them.

Working within the legacies of conceptual and post-conceptual art, contemporary artists are often interested in objects that function as evidence of research and other forms of inquiry. Whether borrowed from everyday life or sculpted into new forms, the works in the exhibition address the role of narrative descriptions that artists, curators, or institutions produce to provide meaning. How do artists choose to speak on behalf of reticent artifacts and the otherwise inert by-products of material culture and the natural world? In what ways do museums and other institutions participate in the creation of value and claims of truth?

Embedded within the desire for meaning in art is a latent desire for narrative, for some semblance of stories that potentially shape an otherwise indeterminate experience. Stories of Almost Everyone is an exhibition that addresses the space of mediation by focusing on a broad range of art objects and artifacts of the recent past that have been re-contextualized through the lens of contemporary art.

Artists
Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc (b. 1977); Lutz Bacher; Darren Bader (b. 1978); Fayçal Baghriche (b. 1972); Kasper Bosmans (b. 1990); Carol Bove (b. 1971); Andrea Büttner (b. 1972); Banu Cennetoğlu (b. 1970); Jay Chung and Q Takeki Maeda (b. 1976; 1977); Fiona Connor (b. 1981); Isabelle Cornaro (b. 1974); Martin Creed (b. 1968); Cian Dayrit (b. 1989); Jason Dodge (b. 1969); Latifa Echakhch (b. 1974); Haris Epaminonda (b. 1980); Geoffrey Farmer (b. 1967); Lara Favaretto (b. 1973); Ceal Floyer (b. 1968); Ryan Gander (b. 1976); Mario García Torres (b. 1975); gerlach en koop; Iman Issa (b. 1979); Hassan Khan (b. 1975); Kapwani Kiwanga (b. 1978); Mark Leckey (b. 1964); Klara Lidén (b. 1979); Jill Magid (b. 1973); Dave McKenzie (b. 1977); Shahryar Nashat (b. 1975); Henrik Olesen (b. 1967); Christodoulos Panayiotou (b. 1978); Amalia Pica (b. 1978); Michael Queenland (b. 1970); Willem de Rooij (b. 1969); Miljohn Ruperto (b. 1971); Tino Sehgal (b. 1976); Mungo Thomson (b. 1969); Antonio Vega Macotela (b. 1980); and Danh Vo (b. 1975).

Audio guide
An important component of Stories of Almost Everyone is a fictional audio guide by writer Kanishk Tharoor. Prompted by individual artworks, Tharoor’s contribution provides an alternative voice to complement and contradict the one adopted by the institutional framing. While audio guides most often provide further explanation and analysis, Tharoor’s textual vignettes treat the materials in the exhibition as narrative devices in the service of fiction, undermining the supposed authoritative voice of the museum.

Catalogue
For the exhibition’s catalogue, writers from a range of disciplines were invited to contribute short-form texts that engage with the themes of the exhibition from varied perspectives. The disparate voices address the power or inner life of objects, the collective desire for meaning, and the means by which narrative and storytelling partake in the strategies of exhibition and display. Designed by Joseph Logan and Katy Nelson of Joseph Logan Design, the catalogue’s contributors include Aram Moshayedi (ed.), Julie Ault, Hannah Black, Jay Chung and Q Takeki Maeda, Emanuele Coccia, CAConrad, Helmut Draxler, Dan Fox, Donatien Grau, Boris Groys,
Bruce Hainley,
Gabriela Jauregui, Hassan Khan, Wayne Koestenbaum, Chris Kraus, Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer, Akira Mizuta, Lippit Daniel McClean, W.J.T. Mitchell, Sohrab Mohebbi, Linda Norden, Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi, Charles Ray, Mayer Rus, Lynne Tillman, and Alaka Wali.

Stories of Almost Everyone is organized by Aram Moshayedi, curator, with Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi, curatorial assistant.

Credit
Stories of Almost Everyone has received generous funding from Maurice Marciano and the Kerry and Simone Vickar Family Foundation, with additional support from the Danielson Foundation and the Mondriaan Fund. The exhibition is also supported by Etant Donnés Contemporary Art, a program of FACE Foundation, developed in partnership with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States, with lead funding from the Florence Gould Foundation, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, the French Ministry of Culture and Institut Français-Paris.