Sem Lala and Andrea Fraser at 71

Andrea Fraser (b. 1965, Billings, Montana) is widely recognised as one of the most influential artists of her generation, Fraser has been a leading figure in institutional critique since the mid-1980s. Working across the media of performance, video, sculpture, photography and text, Fraser examines the social, economic, political, financial and emotional structures that shape institutions within art world. She investigates the motivations of artists, collectors, dealers, patrons, and audiences, exploring how financial interests, prestige, desire, and personal fulfilment intersect within systems of artistic production and reception.

Andrea Fraser, May I Help You? (1991)

May I Help You? is a performance and video work by Andrea Fraser, created in collaboration with Allan McCollum during his exhibition Plaster Surrogates at American Fine Arts, Co. in New York. McCollum's installation of nearly identical plaster objects questions notions of originality, uniqueness, and mass production, providing a fitting conceptual framework for Fraser's institutional critique. The choice of McCollum's work is deliberate: his exhibition becomes the stage for Fraser's performance, while his Plaster Surrogates function as its props, reinforcing the critical dimension of the work. May I Help You? examines the ways in which the art world produces and legitimises social distinctions. During the original performance, gallery staff members—who were in fact performers—delivered a scripted monologue to each visitor who came to see the exhibition while appearing to carry out their usual roles. Based on interviews, publications, and sociological research, Fraser’s script shifts through six distinct voices representing different social positions, ranging from the knowledgeable collector and connoisseur to a person who feels excluded from museums and galleries. Each voice asserts its own perspective while implicitly or explicitly rejecting those articulated by the others. By juxtaposing these conflicting perspectives, Fraser exposes the social and ideological structures that shape the experience of art. May I Help You? demonstrates that museums and galleries are not neutral spaces but institutions that produce and reinforce cultural authority, social class, and exclusion.

Allan McCollum’s (b. 1944, Los Angeles, CA) Plaster Surrogates consist of cast plaster objects painted to resemble framed monochrome paintings. Each object simulates a frame, a mat, and a black rectangular "image," yet none contains an actual picture. Rather than emphasising the aesthetic qualities or meaning of individual artworks, McCollum investigates the cultural and social role of art itself. Through a series of nearly identical, endlessly reproducible objects—which he described as "surrogates" or stand-ins for paintings—he questions the idea of artistic uniqueness and originality. The work suggests that the value of art often derives less from its visual or formal qualities than from its social function, serving as a marker of cultural status, taste, and prestige within private collections and museum settings.

–

Sem Lala (b. 2000, Albania) is an artist that lives and works in New York. Lala’s work has been exhibited at Lovay Fine Arts, Geneva (2025); Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw (2025); Hot Wheels, Athens (2024); Forde, Geneva (2024); Plymouth Rock, Zurich (2021), Haus Wien, Vienna (2021) and Les Urbaines, Lausanne (2020) among others.

Sem Lala, Debt (2026)

Debt is a new body of work by Sem Lala (b. 2000, Albania), developed through an ongoing investigation of material alongside the social and economic structures that underpin institutional life.

For the first exhibition of chess club in collaboration with Archiv Becker, Lala examines debt not simply as a financial condition, but as a system of relations that fundamentally conditions institutional life.

For the Debt series, Lala photographed the sewage processing plant of a private college in New York. The black-and-white photographs depict septic pits and tanks where the institution’s waste is processed. The work creates a pun between debt as the financial substrate of an institution and sewage as its material counterpart. By bringing these two invisible systems together - money and waste - Lala points to the forms of excess and exclusion that are necessary for institutions to function.

Break Point with Eyes Cut Out is a monochrome collage made of golden scratch-off sticker sheets. It draws on the visual and formal conventions of monochrome painting while using a fragile and everyday material. The sticker sheets introduce a relational and discursive aspect within the work, elaborating a formalism that is put into question by the conditions that give the work its value as a monochrome. Bucket of Singularity is a found sculpture containing the artist’s weight in shattered mirror fragments. The work questions the idea of identity as singular and self-contained. Instead, the fragmented reflections suggest that the individual is constituted through relations with others. Across the works, Debt connects economic, material, and social forms of dependency, making visible the hidden systems through which institutions and identities are produced.

chess club founded in 2022 by Amanda Weimer, continues its independent curatorial programme at 71 by bringing together emerging and established local and international artists while fostering dialogue across disciplines. The programme is complemented by the Bookshop, featuring thematic publications and a carefully curated selection of artists' books that extends engagement with contemporary artistic practice beyond the exhibition space.