ANDREA BOWERS, SAM DURANT, BOB & ROBERTA SMITH, GEORGINA STARR ET AL. — Couldn’t Get Ahead, Independent Art Space, London, 1995

Published for Adam McEwen’s 1995 exhibition at Independent Art Space, London, Couldn’t Get Ahead brought together Andrea Bowers, Sam Durant, Robert Gunderman, Bob & Roberta Smith and Georgina Starr at a moment when none of their later trajectories were secure — and when appearing not to have everything under control was very much part of the point.

McEwen’s reproduced press release reads almost like anti-publicity. Rather than polishing five emerging artists into professional biographies, it introduces them through embarrassment, damaged goods, procrastination, difficult dealers, self-help, crying and music. Bob & Roberta Smith has problems with gallery people; Durant reads self-help books; Bowers is drawn to damaged and discarded things; Starr turns awkward personal memory into fiction; Gunderman’s frustrations with the art world become material in their own right.

The title lands accordingly. Couldn’t Get Ahead is self-deprecating, but not defeatist. Failure is being used against polish. Its echo of The Fall’s 1985 song of the same name feels particularly apt in an exhibition already threaded through with music, DIY culture and Bob & Roberta Smith’s imagined collision between Mike Kelley and Mark E. Smith.

The work behaves similarly. Durant’s deliberately rough architectural models undermine the authority of “Good Design”; Starr’s homemade special effects leave their seams visible; Bowers looks toward damaged and rejected material. What ties the exhibition together is less incompetence than refusal: things are not supposed to come out quite right.

And then hindsight changes the joke.

Bowers and Durant would build major international practices; Starr and Bob & Roberta Smith would become established figures in British contemporary art; McEwen himself would move from curating into an internationally recognised artistic career. Thirty-one years later, Couldn’t Get Ahead has become exactly the sort of early-career document its own press release seems determined not to manufacture.

The original CD is integral to the object. Contributions include Sam Durant’s Procrastination Breakdown, material connected to Georgina Starr’s Visit to a Small Planet, Andrea Bowers-associated recordings and Robert Gunderman’s Happy Song. The exhibition moves from gallery to page to sound: catalogue becomes compilation album, and the show becomes portable.

Physically, it keeps the same anti-polish attitude. Raised green lettering sits against a coarse, pavement-like cover; the translucent green CD is fixed at the rear; typewritten material, drawings and photographs move between black-and-white and colour with little concern for conventional catalogue elegance.

Part exhibition catalogue, part fanzine, part compilation, part evidence file.

Published in an edition of 500 copies and retaining its original CD, Couldn’t Get Ahead catches a transatlantic group of artists — and Adam McEwen as curator — at the useful moment before institutional recognition tidied the story.

15 × 21.2 cm. 48 pages; black-and-white and colour illustrations. Softcover with original audio CD mounted to rear. Edition of 500 copies.

Condition: Good. Light handling, rubbing and age-related wear to covers and edges; internally well preserved. Complete with original CD mounted to rear.

Securely packed; tracked UK and international shipping available.