Triple Candie is a research-oriented gallery that produces exhibitions about art but largely devoid of it. A typical exhibition consists of reproductions, surrogates, models, stage-sets, or common objects, displayed using a combination of rhetorical devices borrowed from history and anthropology museums (e.g. extensive wall-labels, photo-documentation, glasstop cases, ephemera) and community art galleries (free-standing wall-panels, amateurish sculpture pedestals). When a show is de-installed, the materials -- both the objects and the display paraphenalia -- are generally recycled for future use or discarded.

Triple Candie's primary purpose since 2005 has been to explore the possibilities of exhibition-making as a distinct and truly alternative practice.

Many of Triple Candie's exhibitions would be difficult -- if not impossible -- to show in any other context, be it a museum, small nonprofit, or commercial gallery. First, there is the issue of there being no original artworks. Second, the shows are generally, though not exclusively, realized without the involvement of artists. And finally, the projects tend to be ambivalent or skeptical, and sometimes even openly critical, of their subjects. In short, there is no art, there are no artists; there is only the exhibition.

Triple Candie has frequently been mislabeled a conceptual art project. It isn't. The co-founders, Shelly Bancroft and Peter Nesbett, are art historians and curators. Still, it is understandable why people might characterize it this way as the language does not yet exist to characterize this type of activity. On other occasions, people have described Triple Candie as an art-historical or curatorial performance, which -- given the ephemeral nature of the projects, the frequent use of historical or fictionional subjects, and the lack of any obvious artist-agents -- is more accurate. Journalism, however, seems to be of equal influence, at least since late 2005. Issues of reproduction, permission, misrepresentation, anonymous sourcing, and narrative construction have all been fundamental to Triple Candie shows.