S E L F - T I T L I N G
- 2018

“Self-titling” is a result of Rad Hourani’s observations on the art market made while attending art fairs, auctions and gallery openings. This serie of artworks is a study of how art collectors and gallerists present and title themselves, with gendered names, ethnicities, professions, hereditary privileges and possessions, rather than simply beings. These labels define their interactions. with this creation, Rad Hourani questions the self-assigned and illusionary categories that humans place themselves into by presenting their identities in everyday life; through this lens, he examines the purpose of creating art today.

Using the most spoken languages worldwide, the artworks are numbered in decreasing order and identified with the most common country-specific names and highest-paying positions in the most economically established places in the world. The buyer or seller thus becomes the curated work of art itself in a form of self-titled advertisement, which raises the question of whether art is created for the purpose of limitless expression or rather for the market, to be sold as a form of decoration for different clients of different statuses.