Let’s get this out of the way: it was only a matter of time before AI curated its own exhibition. And now, at the Château de Montsoreau — that quietly radical museum nested on the banks of the Loire — we have “Art & Language: Interview with an Obedient Humorist,” an exhibition conceptualized entirely by ChatGPT. Yes, the press release makes that bold assertion: from theme to interpretation, this is a show curated by a machine.
What’s immediately striking — and darkly funny — is the recursive elegance of it all. ChatGPT, a hyper-literal, reasoning linguistic engine, has been tasked with interpreting one of the most labyrinthine, self-critical, anti-system art collectives of the last half century. Art & Language, that thorn in the side of Conceptualism and its institutions, is here parsed and parsed again by a machine. You can almost hear the collective chuckling from within their own text-based installations.
The exhibition is divided into four wryly academic sections: “Straight Talk,” “Who’s Speaking?,” “Institutional Irony,” and “The One-Liner Never Arrives.” It’s a neat structure — almost too neat. But that’s where things get interesting. The works selected from the Philippe Méaille Collection unfold as objects of refusal: refusal of fixed authorship, refusal of institutional complacency, and, perhaps most subversively, refusal of conclusion. In the hands (or circuits) of ChatGPT, these refusals are treated less as closed doors than as elliptical prompts — riddles to keep thinking about.
To its credit, the show isn’t afraid of conceptual sprawl. The section “Who’s Speaking?” teases out the ventriloquism of the collective’s voice — a polyphony of statements, arguments, and contradictions masquerading as dialogue. The museum becomes not just a site of display but a stage for linguistic combat. Here, the AI appears to understand — or convincingly simulate the understanding — that to curate Art & Language is not to explain, but to amplify the friction between meaning and interpretation.
This curatorial gamble isn’t without risk. There are moments where the exhibition flirts with the overly didactic — a hazard when your curator is programmed to optimize clarity. But then again, this very clarity becomes a foil to Art & Language’s deliberate obfuscation. The friction is real, and at times invigorating.
“Interview with an Obedient Humorist” may be one of the most quietly provocative exhibitions of the season. It dares to ask whether the radical legacy of Conceptual Art can survive — or evolve — through synthetic curatorial intelligence. The answer? Maybe. Or maybe not. Either way, Art & Language — ever the sly disruptors — have found a new interlocutor. And the conversation is just beginning.
As part of the museum’s year-long celebration of Art & Language’s 60th anniversary, a series of special events are scheduled throughout 2025 :
– Starting April 25, the museum unveils “THERE IS NOTHING TO SEE“, a striking outdoor installation of 20 flags created by Art & Language, displayed along the upper walkway overlooking the château’s inner courtyard. This permanent-scale intervention offers a compelling reflection on visibility, perception, and absence—key concerns within the collective’s practice.
– Running from April 25 to July 1, 2025, the exhibition “Art & Language: interview with an obedient humorist “, curated by ChatGPT, presents a speculative and playful dialogue with the group’s conceptual strategies. By reimagining curatorial authorship through an artificial intelligence, the show questions the boundaries between human intention, machine logic, and the poetics of interpretation—absurd, precise, and disarmingly humorous.
– In parallel, the Château de Montsoreau – Museum of Contemporary Art publishes, for the first time, the full lyrics of Art & Language’s song texts in a unique project titled “Art & Language: 72 Postcards”. Each postcard forms a poetic, musical, and conceptual fragment of the collective’s lyrical output. The 72 postcards can be read individually, in any sequence, or assembled to reveal a hidden sentence—offering a modular reading experience that mirrors the collective’s fragmented, critical approach to meaning.
