MICHAEL ASHER

Michael Asher: a comedian of the first order. His artworks, mostly discrete commissions, render their prompts ridiculous and expose their underlying ironies. They obviate post hoc commodification, eschewing authorship in their final presentation. Take his contribution to the September 1975 issue of Vision – on view in Asher’s current survey at Artists Space, New York – which invited artists to ‘show whatever they wanted to represent themselves’. Asher responded by asking that his name be included in the table of contents and that his allocated ‘two facing pages’ be glued together. The result: ‘one leaf that differed in weight and thickness from all the other leaves in the magazine’ (Asher, Writings 1973–1983 on Works 1969–1979, 1983). I noticed someone flipping through the issue on display, looking for the art; I smiled, in on the joke.