RIRKRIT TIRAVANIJA

I engage the idea of removing the artist completely from the artwork, so that it becomes a kind of group project with audience participation. In a sense, that notion grows out of the institutional critiques of the ’80s. I felt the influence of people like Sherrie Levine, Louise Lawler, Martha Rosler, and Barbara Kruger, who dismantled cultural productions. Now, of course, institutional critique could cover a great deal, in terms of what the “institution” is—the artist working in a studio is a kind of institution, for example. Yet their model gave me an open space to work on ideas of authorship and authenticity, with cultural identity and the relational aspects of culture.

—As told to Julie Caniglia