Documents of Contemporary Art: Failure

Part of the acclaimed 'Documents of Contemporary Art' series of anthologies.

Amidst current global uncertainty failure has become a central subject of investigation in recent art. Artists have actively claimed the space of failure to propose a resistant view of the world. Here success is deemed overrated, doubt embraced, experimentation encouraged and risk considered a viable position. Between the poles of success and failure lies a productive space where paradox rules and dogma is refused. This anthology establishes failure as a core concern in contemporary cultural production. 

Artists surveyed include Bas Jan Ader, Francis Alÿs, John Baldessari, Chris Burden, Phil Collins, Martin Creed, David Critchley, Fischli & Weiss, Ceal Floyer, Isa Genzken, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Félix González-Torres, Wade Guyton, International Necronautical Society, Ray Johnson, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Michael Krebber, Bruce Nauman, Simon Patterson, Janette Parris, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, Dieter Roth, Allen Ruppersberg, Roman Signer, Annika Ström, Paul Thek and William Wegman.

Writers include Giorgio Agamben, Samuel Beckett, Daniel Birnbaum, Bazon Brock, Johanna Burton, Emma Cocker, Gilles Deleuze, Russell Ferguson, Ann Goldstein, Jörg Heiser, Jennifer Higgie, Richard Hylton, Jean-Yves Jouannais, Lisa Lee, Stuart Morgan, Hans-Joachim Müller, Karl Popper, Edgar Schmitz and Coosje van Bruggen.

Lisa Le Feuvre is a curator and writer on art and Head of Sculpture Studies at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, England. She was co-curator, with Tom Morton, of 'British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet' (2010–11).