Exhibiting Parafictional Artists: Curatorial Approaches to Fiction and Authorship

Abstract

This article identifies and analyses parafictional strategies in artistic and curatorial practice. By examining exhibitions that have included artists working under fictitious identities from the mid-1990s to the present, I argue that they emerged in response to the conflictual demands of the art world. These case studies have been organized into three categories according to their main curatorial approach: projects in which artists remained anonymous or were asked to produce work under a purposely invented personality; exhibitions that turned the intersection of fiction and authorship into a theme to be researched; and curatorial initiatives that embraced the working logic of fiction in their own methodology. These strategies investigate how authorship, agency, style and self-promotion function in the contemporary art world.