No Provenance

Drawn from museums, archives, private collections, and individual hands, 'No Provenance' begins with the disappearance of the label. Artefacts, documents, photographs, found objects, fakes and other objects, sit alongside newly commissioned artworks, all encountered without the texts that normally identify, contextualise, or authenticate them. At the heart of 'No Provenance' is a resonance between unprovenanced objects and undocumented people. While objects and people are not equivalent, both may become subject to systems that depend upon records, classification, and recognition. By suspending the labels through which objects are usually understood, the exhibition invites reflection on what it means to exist beyond, between, or outside such frameworks. As familiar distinctions become less certain, unexpected relationships emerge between objects, images, and viewers; and visitors are invited to reconsider how authenticity, identity, knowledge, and belonging are constructed and maintained. The exhibition brings together works by: Alfred Stieglitz, Alfred Wallis, Candelaria Capurro Ferrer, Constantin Brâncu?i, Issam Kourbaj, Kenji Umeda, Mary Kessell, Mourad Kourbaj, Sean Mackaoui, and Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, alongside many unknown makers. ‘No Provenance’ includes objects and works drawn from Cambridge University Herbarium, Coram, The Fitzwilliam Museum, The Foundling Museum, Historical Printing Room, Cambridge University Library, Kettle’s Yard, Lego Lost at Sea project, Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Museum of Cambridge, Museum of Classical Archaeology, Museum of Zoology, The Polar Museum, Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Whipple Museum of the History of Science, and private collections, including an object from Syrian human rights lawyer someone. Issam Kourbaj said: “This project begins with objects whose histories are incomplete, contested, or absent. In thinking about them, I found myself reflecting on undocumented people, whose lives can also become defined by missing records. The exhibition does not equate objects with people, rather, it asks what systems of identification reveal, what they conceal, and who or what remains beyond their reach." An Artist Book, conceived as an artwork in its own right, will be published to extend the exhibition into another register, and the exhibition will be supported by a programme of events. CLOSED MONDAY & TUESDAYS