Inventing (overlooked) Artists

Throughout their work, deufert&plischke have repeatedly questioned the importance of the artist's ego as a point of reference. As their most radical attempt, since 2005 deufert&plischke have been working with various communities to invent artists who never existed - but could have, or even should have - in a local and historical search for traces.  First of all, a biography is developed collectively along local histories. The project therefore begins with a search for traces: what are the local art histories? Who was/is there, who was/is influential? Once a biography is developed, the artist's work must be outlined and then reconstructed. The project ends with a retrospective of the artist's work, accompanied by talks, introductions, walks through the city in the artist's footsteps...

The aim is to search for local histories, lives, movements, to unearth a biography that doesn't exist but could have existed: a voice for those who have often been overlooked in the privileged selection processes of art.

All the artworks are created collectively and published under the name of the invented artist. The identity of the invented artists belongs to the community that invented them.