Common Wealth

Taken separately, “common” and “wealth” suggest two opposite conditions: the shared and communal versus the private and restricted. Bringing together five celebrated international artists—Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, Thomas Hirschhorn, Carsten Höller, and Gabriel Orozco—this book and the exhibition it accompanies explore the multiple implications of the two words that form its title. Artistic collaboration is the predominant theme, whether between artists creating works together or between artist and audience. The artists also examine what type of common ground the museum space, or architecture in general, might still offer in the face of general disillusionment with the concept of a public sphere. In addition to interviews with each artist, the catalogue contains essays by Jessica Morgan and Richard Sennett, as well as an interview with the renowned theorist Jean-Luc Nancy.