Elmgreen & Dragset: Trilogy: Celebrity - The One & The Many · The Collectors · The Welfare Show

Based in London and Berlin, Michael Elmgreen (b. 1961, Denmark) and Ingar Dragset (b. 1969, Norway) have worked as a collaborative team since the mid-1990s. In 2006, their ‘Welfare Show’ at the Serpentine Gallery invited viewers to consider societal power structures, including economic disparity, health care, immigration, travel, prostitution, the police state and the role art plays in society. The duo were awarded Special Mention at the 2009 Venice Biennale for ‘The Collectors’, their highly elaborate and widely acclaimed exhibition for the Danish and Nordic Pavilions, while their 2011 work ‘Celebrity: The One and the Many’ addresses rumour-mongering, life in the public eye, the machinations of the media and its formation of myths. This book thoroughly documents these projects, showing how the artists’ sculptures and installations reconfigure the familiar with characteristic wit and subversive humour. The book also includes interviews with the duo and with French philosopher Paul Virilio.