This handbook provides the definitive guide to commissioning contemporary art. Every step and stage is revealed and demystified - from the initial invitation to an artist to the financing of a project, from the drafting of contracts to the final siting and installation of works, from the care and preservation of commissioned pieces to their interpretation and publicity. Combining theoretical and conceptual considerations with practical ones, Buck and McClean's lively and instructive text is supplemented with copious quotations and insights from some of the best-known artists, curators, commissioners and museum directors of today, including Nicholas Serota, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Jeff Koons, Vito Acconci, Mark Wallinger, Anish Kapoor, RoseLee Goldberg, Thomas Krens, Anne Pasternak, Barbara Gladstone, Mera Rubell, and Olafur Eliasson, to provide a detailed and informed how-to guide to the commissioning process.

The first retrospective monograph on internationally acclaimed Danish artist's collective Superflex, "An Artist with 6 Legs" catalogues the group's work from 1993 to 2013. The first major museum retrospective for this group--known for their participatory, politically engaged projects which they call "tools"--is appropriately unconventional, comprised of eight individual retrospectives curated by Eungie Joo, Yuko Hasegawa, Toke Lykkeberg, Daniel McClean and Lisa Rosendahl, Adriano Pedrosa, Agustin Perez Rubio, Hilde Teerlinck and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Kunsthal Charlottenborg also signed a contract prohibiting the institution, the artists or the curators from mentioning the group by name during the exhibition's run--hence the replacement of the name "Superflex" with a black bar or the characters "XXXXXXX throughout the catalogue. "An Artist with 6 Legs" is both conceptual provocation and an essential reference.

Artistic authorship is fundamental to how we interpret and value artworks. The figure of the solitary, creative genius underpins the symbolic and monetary values we ascribe to artworks; yet artistic authorship, like ownership, is often contested and unstable. This interdisciplinary collection of essays, written from legal, art historical and art market perspectives, critically examines the construction and iteration of the artist-author both during the lifetime of the artist and beyond - when artistic authorship is stewarded by others, including artists' estates, foundations and museums. Drawing on current cases and past legal disputes, this important anthology addresses enduring issues that have become central to the contemporary art world, such as the collision between artists' rights and the rights of the owners of artworks, the problems of authentication and who has the final authority to determine authenticity, and the role of artists' estates as legacy guardians.