Part stupid pun, part deadpan exercise – the Serious Series was the inaugural interactive party at my new studio, where volunteers were encouraged (as a pre-condition to getting served at the bar…) to summon an inner “serious-ness” for this impish “series”. In some sense the idea began as a response to a review that referenced a particular artwork of mine as being “from the series…”, which wasn’t exactly the way I’d “packaged” the work. I began to reflect on the manner in which artists and art handlers “package” work according to some basic formulaic constraints, constraints which in fact help us (and them) to cognitively digest the work. It’s a game of intellectual shorthand; perhaps, a lazy one. In a way, then, this little gimmick (complete with black turtlenecks and b/w art direction) was a ritual I devised to think about, if not reject, this learned approach…