Curatorial Practice (Art)

Der Text analysiert paradoxe Aspekte der Biennalen, die sie sowohl als künstlerisch-gesellschaftliches Medium, als Arena von Repräsentation und als Experimentierfeld für das Zusammenleben ausmachen. Vorkommnisse der 31. Biennale von São Paulo und solche auf früheren Biennalen werden hier mit einbezogen, um Parallelen aufzuzeigen und die nachwirkenden Effekte von Differenzen und Wiederholungen zu untersuchen.
Unterschiedliche Gesichtspunkte bezüglich Publikum, KunstkritikerInnen, KuratorInnen, Künstlerinnen,VermittlerInnen, Institutionen etc. werden dargelegt und einander gegenüber gestellt. Weitere Fragen nach den Bedingungen eines aktiv an der Biennale teilnehmenden Publikums ergeben sich aus diesen unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln und werden von Begriffen Jacques Rancières untermauert.

A critical, comparative analysis of the exhibition project Utopia Station, mounted by Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Molly Nesbit, and Rirkrit Tiravanija at the 2003 Venice Biennale, against Hardt and Negri's 2000 treatise, Empire. This essay was written in 2006 and originally published online in the journal PART (no. 12, 2007), which is now defunct as far as I can tell. I wrote this piece in my first year of grad school, but it has been cited by a number of scholars so I share it here in case it may be of further use to others.

This Ph.D. by Published Work examines five projects that took place over ten years, between 2007 and 2016, that were curated as part of the artistic programme of Arts Catalyst, an independent interdisciplinary arts commissioning organisation of which the author is the founding director. This programme of work sought to understand what form of curatorial model and interpretative framework could generate new artworks and co-produce interdisciplinary knowledge across areas of specialist research and geopolitical urgency.

The projects take the form of exhibitions, texts and edited books, which are presented as the portfolio of work. The selected projects are: Malamp UK, Brandon Ballengée (2007-2010); Arctic Perspective Initiative (2009-2011); ITACCUS – IAF Technical Activities Committee on the Cultural Utilisation of Space – and associated activities (2007-2014); Holoturian, Ariel Guzik (2013-2015); and Wrecked on the Intertidal Zone, YoHa, Critical Art Ensemble, et al. (2013-2016).

Through analysis of and reflection on the projects, this commentary proposes a curatorial model of interdisciplinary co-inquiry, which can foster an ecology of practices, enabling curators, artists, scientists, specialist experts and people with situated expertise to coproduce knowledge around matters of concern, particularly relating to human-environment interaction and common and extraterritorial spaces. It examines the roles of the curator in this model and how these might differ from those commonly understood as established curatorial practice.

The commentary further presents an interpretative and tactical framework of the planetary commons for curating art-led projects in the realm of ecopolitical concerns, that can engage audiences and publics with the art and ideas emerging from this co-inquiry approach. The combination of curatorial model and interpretative and tactical framework contribute to discourses on both inter/trans-disciplinarity and the role of art in relation to the politics of ecology.

The Ph.D. contributes to the field on several levels. Within curatorial studies, the interdisciplinary co-inquiry model reconfigures curatorial practice as a collective, inquiry-driven, knowledge-producing practice, and provides a useful methodology for inter-/trans-disciplinary artistic practice in relation to the politics of ecology, while the framework of the planetary commons proposes direction and allows for investment in reciprocity through commoning practices. Beyond contemporary art, a curatorial co-inquiry model deepens and alters existing approaches for listening to, valuing, and synthesising different types of knowledge and expertise around current environmental and related social concerns. While the commentary argues for the planetary commons framework within the contemporary art space, there are wider implications for it as a complement and alternative to the dominant interpretative framework of the Anthropocene.

This is the Performing Borders Study Room Guide curated by Alessandra Cianetti and published by the Live Art Development Agency (LADA). It explores physical and conceptual orders through live art. Artists working in this aspect talk about their practice.

The PDF is available on the LADA site http://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/resources/catalogue/performing-borders-a-study-room-guide-on-physical-and-conceptual-borders-wi

My section is on pages 92-108. It contains links to relevant resources too.

Recent decades have witnessed concerns over representation, inclusion, and social justice move from the margins to the centre of museum practice. While a growing number of institutions seek to reflect the diversity of their communities in exhibition-making, gaps remain in understanding applied approaches and practices. This book presents the inclusion of new voices and perspectives into the museum via “inclusive curating,” a facilitated process empowering a wide demographic of people to become curators. Grounded in a case study, this book offers guidance in putting inclusive curating into action alongside a range of practical resources and key debates. Curating is often considered an exclusive job for a privileged few. But, by breaking it down using methods demonstrated throughout this book, not only does curating become more usable for more people, it also contributes to understanding the process and practices by which our cultural spaces can become democratized.

Walter Hopps entered the art world during one of the most historic sociopolitical  periods in America: President Truman, without the approval of Congress, committed American troops to battle; the Vietnam War was prolonged; Senator Joseph McCarthy began his communist witch hunt; the abstract expressionist movement was in full swing; President Truman ordered the construction of hydrogen bomb; Truman signed a Peace Treaty with Japan, which officially ended WWII; Joseph Stalin died; the Iron curtain went up; segregation was ruled illegal in the U.S., Disneyland opened, Abstract Expressionism faded, Pop-art became huge, civil rights activist, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus and Water Hopps painted the art world with broad strokes--from Los Angeles to Washington and onward to Houston, Texas.
This paper is about Hopps, the artist-curator, whose contributions indispensably elevated the appreciation of modern art in America.  With insightful commentary by his widow, Caroline Huber, my objective is to shed light on the legendary Hopps who redefined the way the art world examined art and embraced his genius.

This BA thesis defines and differentiates the concepts “feminist artist” and “woman artist” and in this, offers a more comprehensive examination of Francesca Woodman and her oeuvre by resolving whether she was a feminist artist or an artist who happened to be a woman.

Przysługujący widmom wywrotowy, niemalże rewolucyjny potencjał został odsunięty oraz zagubiony poprzez pozbycie się tej kontrowersyjnej kategorii z terytorium metafizyki i zbyt pośpieszne odesłanie jej do przestrzeni badań nad literaturą, sprowadzając ją jedynie do roli użytecznego, bezpiecznego narzędzia interpretacji.

Książka Andrzeja Marca odzyskuje niepokojący charakter widmontologii i ponownie wprowadza widma do myśli metafizycznej. Czym nawiedzona i przeniknięta jest tradycyjna metafizyka, co właściwie ją dręczy, nie daje spokoju oraz nieustannie podmywa jej stabilność?

Kategoria widma Derridy posłużyła Marcowi przede wszystkim do rozważań nad charakterem współczesności i przeobrażeń, jakie dokonały się w obrębie myśli ponowoczesnej. Współczesna kultura, zdaniem Marca, stała się miejscem powstawania widm, nieustannie powracających z przeszłości. Uznając, że nie jesteśmy już w stanie tworzyć utopijnych wizji przyszłości, autor stara się zdać sprawę z widmowego charakteru współczesnej kultury, analizując m. in. strategie vintage, retro, nurt no future w kulturze lat 70. czy nurt fantastyki naukowej w literaturze.

This PhD thesis engenders new approaches to the understanding, appreciation, and experience of modern and contemporary ceramic art. It focusses on two recent outputs. The initial, Scorched Earth: 100 Years of Southern African Potteries (2016), a scholarly publication, and the latter, Post-colonialism? (2016/2017), a socially-engaged international exhibition, held at the Benyamini Contemporary Ceramics Centre in Tel Aviv, Israel. The moral philosophy ubuntu was proposed as a component of self-reflexive methodology for research and curatorial projects. The term cryrator was advanced as constituting an approach to curatorial praxis in conflict zones. These concepts make an original contribution to existing methodologies and research that historicise, de-westernise, and decolonise knowledge.

Performance at Tate explores the history of performance art at Tate from the 1960s to 2016. Arising from a two-year AHRC-funded research project, this online publication offers a new appraisal of the place of performance art and performativity in the museum through essays and case studies on individual artworks and events. It also publishes for the first time audio, films and videos, photographs, museum documents and reviews drawn from Tate’s Archive.
**Link to full publication: http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/performance-at-tate

With articles by Noémie Drouguet, Areti Adamopoulou, Esther Solomon, Jonathan Paquette, Christopher Gunter, Éric Giroux, and Karen Worcman.
------ See also follow up article "Museums Without (Scholar-)Curators: Exhibition-Making in Times of Managerial Curatorship" published in Museum International (2016):

https://www.academia.edu/33024164/Museums_Without_Scholar-_Curators_Exhibition-Making_in_Times_of_Managerial_Curatorship

Dalla fine del XX secolo, i tentativi di rileggere le collezioni museali sono stati declinati in alcuni casi attraverso narrazioni non lineari che non rispettano le tradizionali categorie della storia dell'arte. L'articolo intende indagare le cause di questa tendenza globale dal punto di vista culturale, sociopolitico e teorico. Queste pratiche si sono avvicinate alle collezioni museali come ad una forma di archivio e sono state sviluppate negli ultimi trent'anni in particolare da diverse istituzioni dedicate all'arte contemporanea, rimodellando gli allestimenti e il loro ruolo istituzionale. Attraverso l'analisi di tre casi studio, il Centre Pompidou di Parigi con la mostra Modernités plurielles (2013-2015), il Van Abbemuseum di Eindhoven con The Making of Modern Art (2017-2021) e il Museo Sztuki di Łódź con Atlas of Modernity (2014-oggi), l'articolo analizza la necessità istituzionale dei musei contemporanei di rileggere e riscrivere la storia della "modernità" e delle loro collezioni nel XXI secolo attraverso l'uso di narrazioni dialettiche. Il rapporto tra l'istituzione, le collezioni e la loro narrazione sarà analizzato come carattere distintivo dell'identità e della missione del museo.

The primary exhibition venue for much new art is an international circuit of fairs and biennials, most of which are less than two decades old. Much of this art problematizes its own cosmopolitanism and novelty, depicting mobile populations or exotic locations while conforming to the most current technological or aesthetic standards. Critical discussion of such work often assumes that biennials give us the most direct access to global contemporary art, and that the concepts of “the global” and “the contemporary” are both self-evident and interrelated, or even interchangeable. But what if this isn’t the case? How might the singular form of these concepts function ideologically, blocking our understanding of conflicting geographies or uneven histories? How have international exhibitions sought to contest these relations or to alter their own function? How might such examples change our thinking about the geopolitics of art, the task of the curator, or the relations between exhibitions and their audiences?

This seminar will explore such questions by developing an alternative, “minor” history of the contemporary biennial, focusing on developments that took place outside or in opposition to the hegemony of the global North. We will begin by studying theories of postcoloniality, globalization, and “the contemporary,” and by surveying recent debates about the biennial format. We will then consider historic precedents for the ongoing biennial explosion, moving from the congresses and conventions of the decolonizing Third World through the development of periodic exhibitions in sites including Cuba, Delhi, Lagos, and Sydney. The bulk of the course will consist of case studies of important exhibitions since 1989, including the following: Dak’Art, the Johannesburg Biennial, Manifesta, the Istanbul Biennial, inSite, the Emergency Biennale of Chechnya, the Guangzhou Triennial, and the Tbilisi Triennial. We will meet with several curators, critics, and art historians with expertise in this field.

Este trabalho parte de uma reflexão pessoal, quase intima na relação com a fotografia. Dai que, nas linhas abaixo este resumo não se fundamenta em bibliografias académicas, mas antes no pensamento e manifestação subjetiva da minha parte.

É interessante perceber as ambivalências e reflexões sinalizadas pelas imagens. Elas mobilizam os olhares e exaltam as mentes.

A fotografia é uma ferramenta de “afetos e impactos” que nos pode chocar, fazer rir ou chorar. Quando se trabalha um grupo de pessoas, como é o caso, é possível identificar, laços de amizade, a intimidação que a lente proporciona e a própria libertação dessa intimidade,
proporcionando uma cumplicidade entre fotógrafo e a pessoa, fazendo com que as imagens finais sejam mais naturais e mais bem produzidas.

Ausstellungsrezension:
https://artlabberlin.wordpress.com/2016/03/26/ausstellungsrezension-drinnen-drausen-im-art-lab-berlin-im-iphonedoctor/

Exhibition Review:
https://mrlnslzbrg.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/the-timeliest-exhibition-of-them-all/

The Department of Jewish Art at Bar-Ilan University, Department of Art History at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies at Tel Aviv University, and Maria and Michael Zetlin Museum of Russian Art in Ramat Gan.

Flash Art no. 334, Luglio-Agosto-Settembre 2017



Recensioni dei libri:
"Museologia Radicale" - Claire Bishop (Johan & Levi, 2017)
"Pop Art" - Hal Foster (postmedia, 2016)
"Exforma" - Nicolas Bourriaud (postmedia books, 2017)
"Curatori d'assalto" - David Balzer ( Johan & Levi, 2016)
"Il progetto dell'autonomia" - Pier Vittorio Aureli (Quodlibet, 2016)
"Il pragmatismo nella Storia dell'Arte" - Molly Nesbit (postmedia books, 2017)

A resenha percorre os argumentos centrais de Histórias das exposições. Casos exemplares, livro organizado por Fabio Cypriano e Mirtes Marins de Oliveira e aponta algumas articulações entre o emergente campo de estudos da História das Exposições e outras áreas de conhecimento.

Walid Raad was born in Libanon in 1967, in the past years he worked at two big projects, The Atals Group (1999- 2005) a real and digital archive composed by pictures, documents, diary that documenting the Lebanese Civil Wars (1975–1990), and Scratching on things I could disavow born in 2007.

There are many stories, and histories, of animation film. Yet there are other ways of telling a story of animation that peel back and go below the material, historical and factual surface of this cinematic technique. Because the seven thematic concepts of Watch Me Move have a specific thematic focus, it allows permeation between different animation techniques and historically and stylistically discrete canons. This essay concentrates on four of the themes that consider the viewer's experience of animation: apparitions, structures, fragments and visions. Many works in these themes share certain features, properties and experiential phenomena for viewers. They tend to:  undermine conventional narrative; lack dialogue and are sound and music driven; feature imaginative, impossible 'worlds' and non-anthropomorphic figures; offer philosophical/perceptual concepts that diverge from our everyday experience of 'reality', and they are often self-reflexive. Tex Avery, one of the most radical Hollywood cartoon directors, is purported to have said "You can do anything in an animated cartoon." Looking beyond the cartoon, this essay reveals the fabulous experimentation of some of the exhibition's works that fall outside the realm of commercial popular culture, foregrounding the viewers' experience of the creative imagination that the animated form presents.

Suzanne Buchan was a Curatorial Advisor for the exhibition.

A standard comprehension of curatorial practice is conditioned upon the organizing of relations between objects and meaning, between art and its perception and between objects and other objects. A widespread tendency established in a culture of critique in art and curatorial practice responds to this primacy of the organizational by retreating from it by producing 'open frameworks of interaction' in the hope that this naturalism will secure itself away from what it sees to be problematic instrumentalism of the image. This attitude is underscored, moreover, in practices where the horror of a conscious inability to make this retreat is further standardized in ironic forms of production that correlate a theory of constraint to the materialities of economic dominance. This article argues that both these responses to meaning meet at the same terminus, impoverishing the image and its potential. Looking to and setting out some further problems within Quentin Meillassoux's speculative materialism, this text seeks to move past these problematic

Is the concept of a retrospective antithetical to feminist-aligned politics and histories? How can a retrospective effectively account for the achievements of an artist whose practice was indelibly interwoven with feminist collectives? What possibilities and limitations does working in a museum institution pose for feminist curating? To engage these questions, this article provides a case study of the exhibition, When in Doubt… Ask: a Retrocollective Exhibition of the Work of Mónica Mayer (Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City, 2016), a long overdue survey of the work of a central figure in the feminist art movement in Mexico.

In this essay, the author explored the official/unofficial, national/international dynamics of the 1989 China:Avant-garde Exhibition, its aftermath on the later Chinese contemporary art sphere and society, as well as the subtle (slightly ironic) symbiosis between the Open Door policy and the revitalisation of the contemporary art in mainland China.

Simon Njami opens his introduction to the 2005 Africa Remix catalogue with a description of the “chaos” and “metamorphosis” of contemporary African art.  This paper addresses three exhibits, Africa Remix (2005), African Art Now (2005), and Josephine Baker: Image and Icon (2006) in terms of the political economy, audiences, and semiography of the displays as they move across diverse venues.  Both Africa Remix, curated by Simon Njami, and African Art Now, organized by collector Jean Pigozzi, reinvent and reconfigure contemporary African art in relationship to avant-garde genres, new aesthetic themes, and contrasting audience demands.  Audience responses and critical interpretations to all three exhibits differed as they moved from site to site.  These responses will be viewed in comparative perspective and global context. 

Although the reception of Josephine Baker: Image and Icon, curated by Olivia Lahs-Gonzales, was more local than the two African displays, it introduced similar issues of provenance, ownership, and audience response.  The Josephine Baker exhibit raised questions concerning the iconographic representation of “Africa” in diasporic settings.  All three exhibits interrogate how the term “contemporary” is configured and transmogrified in African art, a question that compels curators and participants to “unmix” the chaos and locate traces of homogeneity and difference in the metamorphosis of the global art scene.  Unmixing will be used as a performative semiotic method of exploring layers of artistic production and display by manipulating signifiers in the topological structure of an art work and its environment.  This manipulation allows the remixing of artistic elements for comparative analysis

'On De-Organisation', from Self-Organised, Stine Hebert and Anne Szefer Karlsen (eds.), Open Editions, 2013

The paper raises questions about distinctions between state, market and artist-run 'organisations' proposing a critical focus on the role of 'organisation' in contemporary attitudes towards work and the self.

Borrowing from Marxist thought, postcolonial studies and critical social theory, this essay will explore the main curatorial and ethical issues facing the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem. Specifically, this essay will evaluate the success of their representations of the Holocaust by analysing the delivery of their collections and architectural features. An important critique that surfaces from this research is of the power dynamics present in modern museological practice, and whether it is morally correct for dominant cultures to narrate the racially charged trauma of marginalized groups of which the hegemonic class do not have lived experience.

This project description presents a curatorial practice that is part
of a post.doc. investigating the contemporary cultural and political focus on participatory agendas. The curatorial practice takes a critical stand towards this focus, and suggests exhibition formats and educational strategies that address participation as critical reflection. The research unfolds in two exhibitions dealing with some of the notable tendencies within contemporary museological and curatorial studies, where museum and exhibition spaces are not considered as spaces of showcasing or conservation of art, but on the contrary are perceived as
active spaces of production. Referring to Doreen Massey’s seminal work For Space – first published in 2005 – art spaces are thought of as a product of interrelations and recognised as always being under construction. In the research project institutional critique from the 1960s and 1970s avant-gardes is used as an analytical approach and as a method of spatial and political criticism and articulation that can be
applied not only to the art world, but to spaces and institutions in general, which is a point made by Simon Sheikh. The two exhibitions are not to be considered as institutional critique, but as critical exchanges with and about contemporary art. The exhibitions are made in collaboration with two non-commercial art spaces in Copenhagen and will be on show in the spring of 2017.