Is there such a thing as "Meta-Art"? Ward Shelley delves into the aestheticization of art history, mapping movements and individuals from art and pop cultural history. Despite his neutral approach, these works tend to show how the narrative is shaped, bent and fitted.

James Kalm catches up with conceptual artist Ward Shelley on the closing day of his exhibition “Who Invented the Avant-Garde and other half truths”. This exhibition presents three bodies of recent work, “Archive” an installation of hundreds of “idea boxes” that represent an externalization of the artist’s mind, “Sleeper Experiment” in which the artist is exposed to a computerized voice repeating donated texts from viewers, and the “Timeline Paintings” which trace the developments and derivations of various cultural happenings in graphic form.
Includes extended explanations of the works by Ward Shelley.