NDA, Compte-tour, ready-made, 2019/2021 + 1101, contrat mural d’un accrochage, Protocole, acrylique, 2019/2021,
1101 is a contract referring to Article 1101 of the French Civil Code, which defines a contract as an agreement of wills intended to create obligations. In this piece, an artist commits — through this contract — to presenting an anonymous artwork, displayed on the wall alongside the contract itself.
The artwork, untitled and unsigned, takes the form of a mechanical counter whose sole function is to count the number of characters in the contract.
The contract contains exactly 1101 characters, directly echoing Article 1101: the number of signs becomes the very measure of the legal foundation it sets forth. The text does not merely describe the work — it produces it, frames it, and activates it.
The piece raises questions about value, measure, and commitment: what does a contract produce, if not a form? And what does an artwork become, when it signs nothing — except the idea of its own juridical frame?
In this dual display — contract and artwork — the figure of the author dissolves, absorbed by the structure that makes the work possible. One could read this as a production in which anonymity is not a disappearance, but a critical strategy operating at the intersection of art and law.
NDA (Non Disclosed Artists) is simultaneously a foundation, an artistic project, and a legal framework designed to enable the creation, dissemination, and anonymous attribution of artworks. Each piece under the name NDA suspends the question of the proper name, interrogates intellectual property regimes, and explores alternative modes of presence within the art world. NDA functions as an act of displacement — a play on the thresholds of visibility, authorship, and recognition.
Presented as part of the group exhibition Floating i, curated by in.plano, Île Saint-Denis, France.
Carolle Sanchez 