Article
Posted: 04/03/2024
Leveraging the Limited Edition: Participation and Obligation in Douglas Huebler’s Prints
Rachel Vogel.
"Leveraging the Limited Edition: Participation and Obligation in Douglas Huebler’s Prints."
American Art
38, no. 1 (April 2024): 54-75.
Though Douglas Huebler is most well-known for his photo-conceptualist works, this article explores how the artist innovatively employed another medium: the limited-edition print. While early chroniclers of Conceptual art often emphasized the artworks’ resistance to being bought and sold, I argue that Huebler created limited editions intended specifically for the collector’s market, using the medium as a conceptual tool to reshape the relationship between artist and collector. The structure of the limited edition both prompted Huebler to conceive of art collecting as a collective endeavor, with each owner of the edition a node in an interconnected network, and endowed the artist with the ability to authorize impressions as authentic and inauthentic. In a moment when works of art were increasingly treated as financial assets, the limited-edition print provided Huebler with a vehicle for questioning the nature of ownership, authorship, and value.
Relevant research areas: North America, 20th Century