Curated by Luca Lo Pinto

For a quarter century, Pierre Bismuth has inventively corrupted Conceptualism’s systems thinking with chance, worldliness, and wit—see Things I remember I’ve done, but don’t remember why I did them, 1998, the collection of drawings, objects, films, and photographs he exhibited after he had finally forgotten the rationale behind them, or his series of scribbly abstractions derived from the movement of actresses’ hands throughout a movie, “Following the right hand of,” 2009–. It’s not entirely surprising, then, to find the droll and mercurial French artist tickling the retrospective format. Alongside one new work—for which Bismuth, who shares his name with a chemical element, designed a molecular structure, though whether this hypothetical polymer will ever materialize is as yet uncertain—he’s invited the titular curator, lawyer, and psychoanalyst to each select approximately ten pieces from his oeuvre since 1988 and write captions explaining their choices. The catalogue will feature these captions, plus an essay by Dessislava Dimova and a conversation between Bismuth and the curator.

— Martin Herbert