From our early childhood lesson about “The Great and Powerful Oz” to the damaging falsehood of “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” we go through our lives surrounded by pretense and deceit. The artists in this exhibition confronted real-life artifices—an offshore company, a secret society, an Internet scam, a faked death—and, in the face of them, took on the roles of investigator and vigilante. These artifices are nebulous constructs that rely on misdirection; subsequently, they are fertile ground for play, mischief, and intervention. Part of their ingenuity is the cunning use of design and the staging of authenticity. As both a rebuke and a backhanded tribute, the artists mimicked the same tactics in their modes of creation. However, there are very real consequences when these deceptions succeed: their gain means someone has to lose. Together in this exhibition, the artists’ projects offered a reversal of victimhood and the viewer entered the work through the vicarious role of a provocateur.

Swedish artist collaborative Goldin+Senneby presented the most recentin carnation of their project Headless (2007-ongoing), in which they are
investigating an undisclosed offshore company in the Bahamas called Headless
Ltd. The project appropriates a dubious corporate model and much of its production is outsourced to both fictive and real agents. An ongoing novel by fictional author K.D., links Headless Ltd. with a secret society known as Acéphale (from the Greek
a-cephalus, meaning “headless”) founded by George Bataille in the late 1930s. Also on view is a three-part documentary by filmmakers Kate Cooper and Richard John Jones that examines the juridical structure of the Headless Ltd. and some of the key players in the project. The documentary was screened in sequential installments according to the following calendar: Installment #1, June 5-20; Installment #2,
June 21-July 4; Installment #3, July 5-11.

We have two primary identities: the one officially authorized by legal documentation and the one comprised of our actions and predilections that we call “self”. San Francisco-based artist Seth Lower’s project concerns a fraud of elaborate staging
that encapsulated both. His installation was the result of his travels to rural Texas
to investigate the fake death of Clayton Wayne Daniels: a strange story of exhumed bodies, forged documents, law enforcement, private investigators, and Lynard Skynard’s song Free Bird.

Paris-based collective Société Réaliste presented an installment of their project, the EU Green Card Lottery, which has been installed at various locations around the world. MISSION 17’s front office was converted into the EU Green Card Lottery Registration Office San Francisco and visitors applied for EU citizenship through
a website. This interface is actually an imitation of the “parasite” websites designed to con migrant workers that are trying to apply to the U.S. Green Card Lottery
system. Instead, the applicants are tricked into giving over their personal information and paying a fee (the real application is free). This project brings to the forefront how people are deceived through the presentation of legitimacy, and how the effects can be exacerbated when there are high stakes—for instance, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.