Bad Manners

Bad Manners is an original history of non-consensual collaboration between artists, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. Narrated by artist Jake Chapman and art historian Yuval Etgar, this book takes the reader through a wealth of artworks and anecdotes involving cannibalistic acts of modification or alteration of another artist’s work, the hijacking of authorship through the addition of a signature, and occasions when the identities of artists or their creations are cast in doubt. Among the works in discussion are a drawing by Pablo Picasso signed as Henri Matisse, a coffee table executed by Martin Kippenberger using a painting by Gerhard Richter as its surface, and a performance by David Hammons documenting the artist urinating on a Richard Serra sculpture.
Published to accompany an exhibition of the same name at Luxembourg + Co., London, Bad Manners raises questions concerning the nature of artistic authorship, standards of collegial etiquette, plagiarism and ownership.