With filmmaker and artist Oliver Husain, what you see may be what you get but what you get isn't necessarily what you see. To publish, then, a standard exhibition catalogue would at best mis-represent his practice, disciplining a cross-disciplinary oeuvre. With that in mind, we approached "Oliver Husain: Spoiler Alert" less as a catalogue and more as an artists' book. Drawings obscure installation images, images counter the narrative of the text, and extradiegetic captions by Husain himself intersperse the book. These captions tell another story, not counter to the project but rather complementary, filling in gaps in the narrative at the same time that they announce that the gaps are inherent in his process. The included essays extend from the working practice of Husain, contextualizing his queer aesthetic to strict structuralist filmmaking (Ian White), or to a-spatial geographies (Chi-Hui Yang), or, even further afield, to neo-absurd conversation between parrots, balloons, and beads (Emelie Chhangur). The design of the book, by Sameer Farooq, was the result of an intensive collaboration between the artist, the designer, and the gallery staff. The design aesthetic was carefully chosen to play "straight-man" to the meandering content. As with all double acts, however, the deadpan design (read: understated elegance) played an essential role in staging the content for its best performance. Right from the start, the trompe-l'oeil cover announces that this book should not be read for its face value: with Husain, there's always a foil awaiting to trap the not-so-innocent bystander.

Oliver Husain's profile page

Emelie Chhangur's profile page

Ian White's profile page