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Manifesta Journal

Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 1


journal of contemporary curatorship
N7 - October 2009 - 84p. - English text
The Grammar of Curating 
Mieke Bal, Anselm Franke, Bartomeu mari,
Gerardo Mosquera, Sven Luetticken, Mary
Anne Staniszewski, Romas Wulffen, Andrea
Giunta, Isabel Tjeda.

ISBN 90- 5006-026-9


9 789081 287425

ABC:
YOU
&
ME
THE GRAMMAR
OF CURATING
5 Questions
by Zeigam Azizov

1.

Can we define exhibition-making as


a set of rules that can function as a
framework for new exhibitions and
if so, how could it be described?

2.

How can the grammar of curating


be distinguished from other kinds
of languages?

3.

The question of space is crucial to


all curating. What about time and
its relevance to a certain grammar
of curating?

4.

What kind of narrative would


best suit curatorial work, which is
formed as a language with its own
grammar?

5.

Can one speak of curating together


with its grammar as a genre?
4 Introduction Hedwig Feijen
Director Manifesta Foundation

Reinventing Since its inception in 2002,

Manifesta?
the Manifesta New Biennial
Network Program has aimed to
be a multi-faceted resource and
research facility. Closely related
to the European Biennial itself, it encompasses the many different
activities that go into strengthening a European network of emerging
curators, writers, artists and other professionals working within or just
outside the context of Manifesta. From its early days at the beginning
of the 1990s, the Biennial was described in the Manifesta 1 catalogue as
not just another exhibition, but a much more profiled way of belonging
to a network of individuals striving to develop new working method-
ologies and curatorial models within the field of contemporary art.

The launch of the Manifesta Journal in 2003 was an integral part


of the expanding Manifesta Network Program. It signified a cru-
cial platform to give a stronger voice to an up-and-coming group of
non-institutional curators, intellectuals, theorists and critics, who
together could utilize this opportunity to articulate and discuss their
positions and other professional issues within a pan-European con-
text. To a large extent, the Manifesta Journal is the first publication
to specifically facilitate the discourse needed to professionalize our
profession, while also fostering links to other disciplines and cul-
tural directions from both an institutional perspective and a broader,
intercontinental view. In this respect, Manifesta strives to stimulate
all new forms of artistic expression and has an ever-growing interest
in developing new audiences for contemporary art.

In 2005, after publishing the first so-called six-pack of half a dozen


volumes together with the Moderna Galerija (Museum of Modern
Art) in Ljubljana, and following the tragic loss of co-editor Igor Zabel,
our Slovenian former coordinator and senior curator of the Moderna
Galerija, a new Manifesta era began. This included the rebirth of the
Manifesta Journala new format that will rotate its team of editors,
including the designers and the co-publisher, every six issues. The
nomadic character of the Manifesta Biennial itself has served as an
inspiration to find a format that could reflect the diverse elements of a
constantly changing cultural discourse.
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 5

By virtue of their freshness, the new editors chief editor Viktor


Misiano, associate editor Nathalie Zonnenberg, managing editor Lisa
Mazza will be able to pursue a strong, novel thematic and visual
direction for the Journal, distinct from the previous models and rou-
tines of what now seems to be a jumble of existing art and/or cultural
magazines. The newly developed design of the Manifesta Journal (is-
sues 712), created by Amsterdam design-team COUP, strengthens and
widens the visibility of this discourse among an international group
of curators, art critics, artists, students and other professionals.

Over the last 15 years, Manifestas growing network has attracted


a new generation of thinkers and writers who are invited to pres-
ent their research in the forthcoming Manifesta Journals. With this
in mind, partners were sought who similarly support writers and
thinkers, with whom Manifesta can conceive fresh research projects
beneficial to the Journal and its growing audience. Hence we are most
contened with the newly established collaboration between the Mani-
festa Journal and the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design
and Architecture (Fonds BKVB). Fonds BKVB, the Dutch national
foundation responsible for enabling visual artists, designers, archi-
tects and cultural mediators to develop their work in a variety of ways.
Through Fonds BKVB funding, Dutch art mediators, curators, crit-
ics and theorists can receive grants to undertake research projects,
publications and exhibitions, which make a significant contribution
to intellectual life in the Netherlands. I would especially like to thank
Lex ter Braak, director of the Fonds BKVB, for his role in establishing
a link between Dutch artists, designers, architects, thinkers and writ-
ers and the Manifesta Journal. We look forward to working together
in the next issues of the Manifesta Journal in 2009 and 2010.

Finally, I would like to mention our Italian publisher, Silvana Edito-


riale, who agreed to follow up the successful reprint in book form of
the first series of the Manifesta Journals. This prolonged collabora-
tion highlights the need for sustainable structures and relationships,
beneficial to the Manifesta Foundation, the publisher and our readers.
I would especially like to thank Dario Cimorelli, editorial director of
Silvana Editoriale, for this wonderful opportunity to develop the new
series of the Manifesta Journal.
6 Editorial statement Viktor Misiano

Grammar of Grammar is a set of rules

the Exhibition
that make meaning pos-
sible, communicable and
interactive. At the heart
of grammar is syntax: the
rules of relationship between elements. In recent exhibition prac-
tices, syntax has come to the fore as a structuring principle that helps
make sense not of the artworks as such, but of their relationship to the
viewer, Mieke Bal asserts. This view on curatorial practice justifies
the thematic axis in this new issue of Manifesta Journal.

Yet such a point of view is far from common. Curation does not exhibit
the properties of a language, and therefore has no grammar Curation
is a practice and hence more of an act/intervention than a language
with a grammar; it is more like a speech act in the institutional
language of art, Peter Osborne says. Due to this divergence of opinion,
Manifesta Journal 7 has become a platform for theoretical debate, which
is the highest justification for a theoretical publication.

But the controversy is not confined to considerations of grammar in


curating. There are those who, like Mieke Bal, insist that artistic and
philosophical material and aesthetic conditions have become overt
elements of art itself. In response to these developments, the curator
has come to take on increasing artistic agency. Others defend the op-
posite position: Ideas of curation as a language and of the curatorial
work are ungrounded. They seem primarily directed toward improv-
ing the social status of curators by increasing their visibility on the
basis of an analogy with artistic practice Conceiving of curation as
specifically artists work thus negates the very concept of the curation
of art, Osborn polemicizes.

One argument against this latter point may be the undeniable fact that
artists themselves have repeatedly called upon curatorial practice,
endowing their curatorial work with complete creative status. Marcel
Broodthaers may be one of the most immediate examples, as Cathleen
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 7

Chaffee points out, but he is obviously not the only one. Moreover, that
Broodthaers and many other conceptualist artists appealed to curat-
ing at a time, at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, when
curatorial practice was starting to constitute an autonomous disci-
pline, could be considered highly symptomatic. One of the explana-
tions for this could be that the production of space, being one of the
basic constituents of curatorial work and one of the main components
of its grammar, was also at the center of the artists preoccupations
during that period. There are many testimonies to prove that; RoseLee
Goldbergs from 1975 is a fundamental one.

But there is another, more general explanation, which relates to the


fact that none of the authors of Manifesta Journal 7 denies that curat-
ing is distinguished from other cultural practices by its complex
institutional history and politics, as Osborn states, and that exhibi-
tions are places for the representation of power, as Anselm Franke
recalls. In fact, according to Franke, this acceptance has served to
motivate the development of forms by conceptual artists who theatri-
calized the medium of the exhibition by making those elements that
were formerly mere background conditions into their material In-
deed, the main part of their practice consists in making this grammar
visible, shifting it from the realm of the implicit or the background
and into the explicit foreground, thereby addressing and disarm-
ing the existing structures of power. The same can be observed in
curatorial efforts, as well as in the entire programming of different
innovative institutions, for whom an awareness of their language of
form was inseparable from understanding curating as a creative,
powerful, vital force that contributes to and even transforms the
social landscape, as Mary Anne Staniszewski writes in her case study
of an art institution.

This is why, when curators are invited to reflect on their personal


curatorial grammar, they always relate it to their commitment in life
and ideas, as Bartomeu Mar puts it, to making the world change
through the impulse of art and everything art can convey.
8 Positions Anselm Franke

Magic Circles
Exhibitions under
the conditions of
the society of control

It is no secret that exhibitions are Observing the bodily presence of peo-


spaces with specific protocols, scripted ple in such spaces, one cannot help but
spaces. This fact is true for almost wonder how these scripts are implicitly
all spaces, although it is particularly understood and performed without
distinct in so-called single-issue ever having been made explicit, with
spaces, which are set apart from their the exception of perhaps a few signs.
surroundings in a particular way; the There is a physical, non-significant
space described in Brian ODohertys communication between the subjects
Inside the White Cube is exemplary and the scripts, one which suggests
for the modernist exhibition in this that there must have been an original
regard. The scripts of most spaces interiorization of some sort on which to
(aside from lawless zones, which are all base such implicit understanding, and
but anarchic) are currently signifi- a telepathic, mediated communication
cantly developed on all registers. Less with this origin. One navigates those
and less are everyday spaces limited scripts and their spatial mappings like
to a certain function (like a post office, a somnambulist. But if tourists, for
say, in which the function is clear); instance, happen to enter an exhibition
rather, they tend to entail a sort of space whose designation is not imme-
atmospheric, all-around dynamism in diately apparent, there is a startlingly
which entire subjects, if not worlds, are intense moment of disorientation that
animated. At the very least, they cre- is often manifested in incoherent
ate zones of contact between subjects body movements and broken syntax
and worlds. The scripts that stage of language. Yet once it has become
this contact predetermine their actors clear which play is being performed
(as customers, visitors, etc.) through on this stage, it is hardly necessary for
generic phantom-profiles, thus gen- anyone to learn the scriptunless, that
erating subjectifying magical circles is, one attempts to take over a lead role.
waiting, like negative forms, to be The scripts communicate themselves.
filled in. One enters those spaces and Upon entering into such spaces, one
embodies those scripts. Such spaces enters a space of mediation, which is at
are machines, like a theater without once a linguistic system and a picto-
subjects. The subject functions as a rial space. This stratum of the implicit,
signal of contact. a-signifying and embodied knowledge
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 9

of mediation is precisely where the ge- Perhaps this is a possible explana-


ographies of power today are dramati- tion for the scarcity of imagery in
cally rearranged. This rearrangement conceptual art, which has never been
also affects economies of the image. iconoclastic. Rather, conceptual art
At one point in time, art had a tactical consists of means and strategies to ex-
advantage in this area, but that has pose existing images and imaginaries,
been lost. which are part of the background that
stabilizes a symbolic order or a script,
The fact that exhibitions are places but not visible as such. For some time
for the representation of power has now, it is this background, this realm
been widely acknowledged for a long of implicit imagery, which has become
time. This acceptance has served to mobilized as the authentic scene of
motivate the development of forms by subjectification (in regard to gender,
conceptual artists who theatricalized for instance). The basic gesture of
the medium of the exhibition by mak- conceptual art is to exhibit the implicit
ing those elements that were formerly social pictorial space and its mediated
mere background conditions into their nature. Hence, conceptual art consists
material. It was in that manner that of grammatical devices that bring this
institutional critique and feminism background and its attendant implicit
disclosed the power structures that conditions to the fore. These gram-
were implicitly present in the sup- matical devices can be found in every
porting conditions of the exhibition. detail and on every level of produc-
These two tendencies still present the tion; within the exhibition format, for
most articulated understanding of the instance, they appear in the frame, the
grammar of the exhibition. Indeed, the display, the captions and, eventually, in
main part of their practice consists in the entire institution, integrated into
making this grammar visible, shift- a landscape of other institutions and
ing it from the realm of the implicit or positioned within the order of com-
the background and into the explicit munity and economy.
foreground, thereby addressing and
disarming the existing structures of Peter Friedl has described the his-
power. Therefore one could consider a torical moment of conceptual art as
good deal of the art practices that have a climax of theatricality in the visual
proliferated in the past decades, and arts, dissolving prior limits of artistic
which explicitly aim to undo power reference and material, and thus
structures, as a renegotiation of a cen- recruiting new figures to the stage.
tral issue of pictorial space: the relation New relations and subjects occupy this
between figure and ground. Only the stage, becoming characters or actors
pictorial space is no longer confined to be critiqued. The historical moment
to a canvas and the picture frame, but of conceptual art was perhaps less
has left said frame in search of the concerned with dematerializing the
frames that condition our realities. The art object than with making visible,
ground is now no longer the plane of perhaps as figures or actors in the
an image, but the institutional, social work, their background conditions,
and economic conditions, as well as the especially abstract relations (such as
language of the medium itself. This those produced by capital) that previ-
language is grammatically structured ously existing means of representation
by the boundary between background could not sufficiently expose. Accord-
and foreground, along with the means ingly, the dematerialization of the art
to question and surpass this very object is merely a device, one necessary
boundary. in order to assert that the real scenes
10 Positions Anselm Franke

are minds and bodies. The formal is increasingly adrift, like an economy
aesthetics and puritanical nature of of signs that has lost its referents. As a
conceptual art are, so to speak, just political strategy, it becomes a quixotic
a camouflage to disguise a theatrical crusade that ceaselessly desires clear
gesture after all, isnt the appearance power relationships in order to combat
of a character the theatrical gesture them and perform the shift from back-
par excellence? Isnt the detachment of ground to foreground. Or it becomes,
an element from an undifferentiated even more frequently, a crusade of
but totally framed background a means cultural capitalization, entering ever
to make that element appear on the dif- new layers of the social imaginary
ferentiated stage of negotiation? and temporarily re-coining the lost
referents there. These referents then
In this theatrical gesture of disclosure, become opportunities for the kind of
the dissolution of boundaries and the performative power plays that depend
process of politicization are indissolu- on a potential for signification and
bly merged. To go beyond the frame, the resurrection of the creator-genius
to disclose the background conditions behind them.
which govern any utterance and to
politicize these conditions were all cor- The shift in historical backgrounds is
related. This interrelation was one of occurring because power, too, learns
the crucial engines behind recent art dialectically. The shift can be sketched
history: a dialectical act that takes up as a transition from the so-called
and critically attacks the dialectics of society of discipline to the society
social power while promising an inver- of control. The society of control, it
sion consummate to a revolution. One is said, is a result of the release of the
aspect (the politicization of conditions) restrictions on disciplinary power.
confirms, justifies and demands the The idea of the dissolution of bor-
other (the dissolution of boundaries). ders, the goal of moving outside the
Yet the politicization of conditions is institution, originates here. The crisis
only made possible through the dis- of confinement and administrative
solution of boundaries. This circular codification forges new territory and
argumentation is still operative today culminates in the emancipation of the
and remains largely beyond criti- neurotic subject. The society of control
cism. As a result, criticism is reduced does not consist in the much-discussed
to expressing small differentiations presence of surveillance cameras, but
in taste and elaborating on how much rather in the mobilization of this liber-
discourse the operation can take in ated subject and its potential to trans-
each particular instance of an artistic form itself. The background condi-
gesturebecause one has to affirm tions are no longer those of restrictive
limits, other implicit backgrounds and, confinement; instead, they are the very
not least, because attention spans are possibilities of subjective possibilities
limited. In the meantime, this inter- themselves, which in theory are not
relation has constituted something like subject to any borders other than the
a style, becoming a newly-accepted subjects, but which cannot be articu-
background, a universal language, a lated collectively. The subject is both
genre. freed from its boundaries and required
to serve as manager of those boundar-
In any case, the historical background ies, re-establishing the relationship
in which the interrelation has taken between the implicit and the explicit,
shape has shifted imperceptibly. The since this relationship now determines
process of disclosing the background the boundaries of the self.
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 11

For art, this mobilization of the self as a version of the kind of labor that each
background condition implies that the subject must continuously and silently
rhetoric and gestures of criticism are perform in the society of control.
now being domesticated and institu- There is no simple map to display the
tionalized by museums. The profiling geography of the new power relation-
and social capitalization of institutions ships. Their borders appear to draw
such as museums, moreover, increas- themselves, depending on the atmo-
ingly deploy this gestures of critique; spheres and weather fronts of social
these institutions thus become their impulse, in a continuous redefinition
own direct commissioning bodies. of the borders of what can be medi-
What has long haunted criticisms clean ated and what impedes mediation. The
conscience, namely its role in expand- mapping of geological fault lines and
ing rather than reducing the power of furrows enters the third dimension;
the critiqued object, has become a gen- its stage extends beyond the subject.
eral principle, with surprising powers Today, the pictorial space of history
to produce conformity. Criticism thus must be measured vertically. And the
becomes a device used by subjects to exhibition is perhaps still the ideal for-
give themselves a place within a sphere mat for taking these measurements.
of power. The more direct the criticism,
the greater the claim to power. The
gesture of negation of critique (which
is the act of disclosing background
conditions) produces the knowledge for
what essentially becomes an affirma-
tion. It is in the calibration of negation
and affirmation where the modulation
of subjects takes place.

Because this has become a standard-


ized program, what is often forgot-
ten is the magic that determines the
relationship between background and
foreground. This forgetting is a central
component of the new production of
governmentality. Its weapon is the
accusation of undemocratic exclu-
sion. This applies particularly to art
exhibitions, which have a paradoxical
function today: to frame an art that has
lost its boundaries. The grammar of
curatorial praxis stems from the center
of this paradox. Inclusion and exclu-
sion are negotiated through this (today,
art wants above all to go into the frame,
that is, into the picture or the stage,
rather than beyond it), bringing forth
the economy of negation and affirma-
tion of conditions. Along with this
come the coordinates of the current
technologies of power and politics. Cu-
rating is a more or less public-theater-
12 Discourse Mieke Bal
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 13

NOTES

Exhibition as
1Mieke Bal, Double
Exposures: the Subject of
Cultural Analysis (New

a Syntax of
York: Routledge, 1996).

2The exhibition
consisted of works by

the Face
Diane Arbus, Maurizio
Cattelan, James Coleman,
Hanne Darboven, Walker
Evans, Luciano Fabro, On
Kawara, Paul McCarthy,
Bruce Nauman, Giulio
Paolini, August Sander,
Jeff Wall and Lawrence
Grammar is a set of rules that make among elementsnormally words Weiner as well as press
meaning possible, communicable and set in place so that complex mean- photographs, anonymous
interactive. At the heart of grammar ings can emerge. I focus in particular amateur photographs
is syntax: the rules of relationship on the syntax of exchange, as in the and everyday objects.
between elements. In recent exhibition interaction between participants in a
practices, syntax has come to the fore as conversation. The central site of this 3The exhibition
a structuring principle that helps make interaction is the face, hence the term consisted of works by
sense not of the artworks as such, but of interface. In the Western tradition, Walid Raad/ The Atlas
their relationship to the viewer. Once the the face has been appropriated by Group, Mieke Bal,
illusory autonomy of art was exposed oppressive sentimentalist humanism Gonzalo Ballester, Ursula
for what it isan illusionall manner in a threefold way: as the window of Biemann, Clio Braga,
of impurities came to the fore. For the soul, as the key to identity trans- Cinema Suitcase, Conce
instance, art after modernism devel- lated into individuality, and as the site Codina, Keren Cytter,
oped a synaesthetic mixture of media of policing. As an alternative to this Wojtek Doroszuk, Olafur
appealing not just to the eye but to all tradition, exhibitions can deploy the Eliasson, Mona Hatoum,
the senses. Additionally, artistic and singularity of the face to construct a Liza Johnson, William
philosophical material and aesthetic syntax based on the faces function as a Kentridge, Daniel
conditions have become overt elements site for interface. Lupin, Zen Marie,
of art itself. In response to these de- Melvin Moti, Pedro
velopments, the curator has come to Interfaces between Ortuo, Javier Pividal,
take on increasing artistic agency. As a the Aesthetic and Jess Segura, Roos
result, the thoughts art articulates in its the Political Theuws and Gary Ward.
own way become framed and addressed The point of these metaphors is not to
by discourses both surrounding the invade visual art with language, but 4From Partners:
exhibition and interfering with it. to seriously engage with the way art The Ydessa Hendeles Art
is already discursive as much as it is Foundation, Toronto, 29
In this essay, I propose a few ways visual. This interpenetration of disci- October 2009 <http://
of thinking about innovative exhibi- plines and practices is quite useful; it www.hausderkunst.de/>.
tion practices in order to make them helps museologists to conceive of their
easier to grasp, evaluate and enjoy on practice artistically and coherently, 5In calling it primarily
their own terms. The central term, while providing critics with concep- political,
syntax, indicates rule-bound relations tual tools to illuminate exhibitions as I mean something other
14 Discourse Mieke Bal

than what is equated meaningful wholes in relation to their aligned with, by accident or against
with politics, in the visitors. In my book Double Exposures, our will. 4As this quotation demon-
usual sense of the word. I have examined a few famous exhibi- strates, the exhibition did important
Both art and the political tion sites in internationally-esteemed political work by both addressing a
are domains of agency; museums1. The key metaphor in this trans-national world and refraining
realms where action is analysis is narrative, conceived as from endorsing neo-nationalism. It
possible and can have meaning-producing sequentiality, also established long-repressed, albeit
effects. In the case which emerges from the viewers walk ambivalent links, or partnerships, be-
of the political effect through an exhibition. Putting one tween Jewish and German peoples and
of art, that agency is thing next to another, in other words, between both sides of the Atlantic. This
one and the same; art produces a time-bound relationship, political force was wrought by means
works as art because it a linear progression between the two of a profoundly effective aesthetic.
works, period, including elements. Narrative in this sense comes
politically. On the quite close to syntax. What happens In the case of Partners, this aesthetic is
question of arts capacity to a single sentence in language, or intimately bound up with the predomi-
to work politically, see sequence in film, is bound to rules that nant medium of the exhibition, which
my book Of What One make meaning-production possible, is photography. In light of my view that
Cannot Speak: Doris and it is plausible to consider an exhibi- exhibitions, by virtue of the spectators
Salcedos Political Art tions juxtapositions and combinations, movement through the space and the
(Chicago: The University lighting and distance as similarly rule- sequentiality created by that movement,
of Chicago Press, bound in order to be meaningful. are always to some extent narrative, the
forthcoming). I am particularly interested in the medium of photography in the exhibi-
relationship between aesthetic and po- tion tends to take on cinematic effects.
litical efficacy in exhibition-making. I
examine this through two very differ- For an understanding of the artis-
ent exhibitions: one highly aesthetic, tic work the exhibition Partners
the other primarily political. The first performed by means of syntax, I
consisted primarily, but not exclu- thus appeal to the metaphor of film.
sively, of inert objects like photographs Specifically, since many of the works
and sculptures, as well as a few videos exhibited there are, or are derived
and installations with moving images. from, photography, I understand
The second was solely composed of Partners as, among many other things,
moving images, or more specifically, of a proposal to consider photography as
video works. The former is the award- a storyboard or visual scenario for a
winning exhibition Partners, curated cinematic vision of art presentation.
by Canadian art collector and curator This is where its elements are syntacti-
Ydessa Hendeles at the Haus der Kunst cally linked. Photographys allegedly
in Munich in 2002-20032. The latter is privileged connection to reality is
the experimental exhibition 2MOVE, part of that function. Hence, so is the
which I co-curated with Miguel . connection to, or engagement with,
Hernndez Navarro in four different transnational conceptions of nation-
European cities in 2007-20083. hood and display that informed the
show, and that makes it in a limited
Hendeless exhibition had high aes- respect comparable to 2MOVE. It is this
Installation view thetic ambitions, but it is more than inextricable bond between aesthetics
Clio Braga Dalice, 2005 that. She stated, The exhibition draws and politics that I seek to illuminate
in 2move - Double attention to twentieth century belief through the metaphor of syntax.
Movement Migratory systems, embedded in the delusions and
Aesthetics 2007/2008 confusions inherent in icons and im- In the case of Partners, the relation-
Credits Astrid van ages with which we align ourselves by ship between art and the politics of
Wijenberg choice or by circumstance, or become nationhood is brought in according
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 15
16 Discourse Mieke Bal

to a particular aesthetic vision that contrast. In 2MOVE, movementwhat


binds the contemplation of art to a I call film or the cinematic in Part-
repositioning of the subject in relation nersis the starting point, whereas
to the world. This works as follows: the cinematic qualities of Partners are
The cinematic vision of this exhibi- generated after the fact by the experi-
tion establishes, or at least encourages, ence of viewing the exhibition. On the
an affective relationship, not only other hand, whereas installation is
between the art and the viewera Partners primary feature, it is second-
pragmatic relationshipbut also ary for 2MOVE. Some of the works
between the artworks themselvesa in 2MOVE, installations themselves,
syntactic relationship. These relation- foreground the intention behind
ships between the artworks constitute juxtaposing works of such diverse
Partners syntax, which is affective in backgrounds, aesthetic qualities and
nature. Photography, the key element genres in one exhibition: This diver-
in Partners, is a medium for which sity characterizes the exhibition and
affect presents the possibility of trans- defines its political thrust. In addition
lating heterogeneous emotions into to the attempt to articulate intricate re-
each other. That translation, not the lationships between video as a medium
specific emotions, is affect-based. The of movement with time, and migration
common foundation on which such as a social phenomenon of movement
translation can work is the notion that through time, 2MOVE was also a collec-
through art, it is possible to identify tive installation, a work as a whole that
with other peoples pasts as they lived brings together artworks which had
them; in other words, to have other never before been installed together.
peoples memories. And, in such cases, The same is the case in Partners.
where memories travel as much across
the Atlantic as through time, the af- The Subject
fective syntax works in terms of world Mise-en-Scne
memories. This term, then, suggests Partners occupied fourteen exhibition
how to move from neo-nationalism to rooms in the Haus der Kunst in Mu-
post-national thinking. nich, thirteen of which are medium to
small, around one large central space.
No situation today lends itself better to The different rooms were devoted
a post-national perspective, of course, to objects ranging from early photo-
than migratory culture, the focus of graphs to contemporary sculpture.
2MOVE. The exhibition, which was Neither strictly sequential nor circular,
primarily political limited to video art, the exhibition had a single entrance,
took place in four different coun- leading into a display of three very dif-
triesSpain, the Netherlands, Norway ferent objects, none of which belong to
and the two Irelandsduring 2007 an art historical canon. After this small
and 20085. In exploring what makes entrance room, the exhibition offered
art political and what constitutes the several possible itineraries.
political in art, we explored where arts In light of this organization, the
political efficacy can be locatedhow exhibition suggests the relevance of
it performs, how it achieves agency, the metaphor of theater as a frame of
and the ramifications of arts political reference for the shows construction.
agency in the larger domain of culture. Exhibiting a number of artworks under
the best possible viewing conditions,
Like Partners, 2MOVE targeted a trans- curators need to develop a scenography.
national world. Yet in another respect, They arrange objects in a space that,
the two exhibitions are starkly in by virtue of those objects status as art,
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 17

becomes more or less fictional. The gal- 2MOVE can substantiate this claim
lery suspends everyday concerns and paradoxical because, of all the works
isolates the viewer with the art. in this show, it is the stillest. Dalice
(2005), by Brazilian artist Clio Braga,
But the gallery space also isolates the is a portrait of a middle-aged woman,
viewer from the art. This turns the gal- a close-up against a white background
lery space into a stage separated from that leaves no opportunity for dis-
the spectator. To make a convincing tractionjust a face. There are two of
exhibition, the curator arranges the ob- these portraits, two identical videos
jects like still personages, as in a tableau positioned opposite each other, ma-
vivant. This entails a distancing that noeuvring the viewer to stand between
constitutes the limit of the usefulness them. Manoeuvring points to rule-
of the metaphor of theater, as I explain bound behavior necessary to make
below. While Partners deploys this sense; hence, in all its simplicity, this is
metaphor, it does not restrict itself to it. figuratively a case of syntax. Stand, do
To be sure, an exhibition is necessarily not sit. The two videos are screened at
the result of a mise-en-scne, and Part- eye-level from monitors placed on dark
ners is no exception. In theater, mise- grey pedestals. One wonders why this
en-scne is the materialization of text video is presented as an installation,
(word and score) in a form accessible rather than as a simple single-screen
to the public; it is a mediation between film. Syntax can clarify this.
a play and the many individuals in the Thanks to the syntax that orders them
public, an artistic organization of the as opposites, Bragas work exemplifies
space in which the play is set, and an the syntax of installation as such and,
arrangement of a limited and delimited in particular, the syntax of the face. The
section of real time and space. As a face is the site of interfacing: it is where
result of all this arrangement, a differ- the first person and the second per-
ently delimited section of fictional time son change roles. When I look at you,
and space accommodates the fictional you become an I looking at a you.
activities of the actors, who perform Who says I must be willing to be also
their roles in order to build a plot. In addressed as you. This syntax binds
the case of exhibitions, the role of actor subjects together. In Dalice, the struc-
is not limited to the objects on display; ture of the I/you interaction is doubled
both the visitors and the objects are the by a third person, the one who is seen
actors, and it is the interaction between and talked about but does not herself
them that constitutes the play. participate in the interaction. In the
exhibition as a whole, the installed vid-
Mise-en-scne indicates the overall eos produce a qualified and, in a sense,
artistic activity whose results shelter disenchanted intimacy that enables an
and foster the performance of the ethical engagement with the migra-
concrete realization of the art. In its tory otherness within contemporary
mobility, and in the change over time culture. This argument moves through
that it entails, mise-en-scne fits nicely three theoretical motives that converge
as a metaphor for the experience of an in the face: the architecture, or setting,
exhibition because it creates an affec- of the installations and by extension,
tive relationship with the spectators on the exhibition as a whole; the inevi-
the basis of, among other things, spa- table mirroring that insinuates itself
tial arrangements. It is also a metaphor when one moves through a space with
that theater shares with film. Mise-en- multiple video screens; and the specific
scne is syntax in three dimensions. sense of space that emerges from the
A paradoxical exemplary work from combination of these motifs.
18 Discourse Mieke Bal

With a hand-held camera, Clio Braga


has filmed his mothers face in her
own home. He filmed her during the
long minutes he observed her inward-
turned grief while engrossed in the
task of absorbing the horror of her
daughters death. This moment of
mourning was, as Gadamer would say,
the occasion. The installation of the
work emblematizes the syntax of the
face in its double nature as described
above: first-person/second-person on
one screen, and inevitably a third-
person in the other scene whom we between these two reality factors.
know to be behind us but whom we The portrait is less a portrait of this
cannot see. This double syntax of the woman, Dalice, than of the emotion
face also works in the filming itself. weighing her down. And this is where
The son witnesses his mothers grief, is the specificity of video comes in, as a
grieving himself, we can assume, and paradigmatic instance of syntax. The
yet all he can do is film that silent face near-stillness of the image asks what
while he himself remains invisible, a video portrait is, as distinct from
potentially turning the direct relation- a photograph. The slight movement
ship of mother and son into a third- of the face (eyes blinking or turning
person discourse. The hand holding upwards), which seems to be the only
the camera, however, checks that risk, difference between these two mediums
for it is visually holding his mother. of portraiture, has a correlate in the
While facing someone, that is, looking slight movement of the image caused
someone in the face, is centering, the by the movement of the hand that holds
movement in this video is visible only the camera.
at the edges of the face.
That hand, reduced to its bare essen-
The installation of Dalice raises many tials through the medium, caresses
questions pertaining to the syntax the face-as-image. When the face
of the face, such as the portrait, the moves on its own, the image present-
medium, the face and the possibil- ing the face moves. Small, barely
ity of empathy or intimacy. It raises visible, secondary movements are the
these questions through the syntax of inevitable consequence of hand-held
personal interaction, and with some shooting. This produces this double
urgency, because the bare facts alone movement and through it, powerfully
would easily bring up an unease asso- states the grammar of video in inti-
ciated with voyeurism. This, in turn, is macy. It asks if it is possible to read the
connected to the issue of documenta- face, to see grief. It asks if it is possible
rism. The portrait made by a camera is to empathize with an unknown woman
undeniably occasioned (as Gadamer), across the gap, first, of her aloneness,
but how important for this work is second, of her sons absence due to his
that sense of documentary implied by emigration, and third, our belatedness,
this concept? The reality of the occa- our incapacity to make contact. Can we
sion could barely be more convincing see that this face is one of mourning, or
or dramatic: a mother grieving, one do we need to have the intimate knowl-
week after the death of her child. But edge of the daughters death?
strangely, there seems to be a tension
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 19

Video Still Clio Braga.


Dalice, 2005, courtesy
the artist

Facing someone, taken at face value, the simple lets face it transforms
is in itself subject to syntax. The act of into a challenge: can we really face it/
facing produces meaning according her, make that contact that is so badly
to the rule of directly facing positions. needed? This is the question of aesthet-
Thanks to this positioning, facing is ics as the experience of binding.
three things, or acts, at once. Literally,
facing is the act of looking someone This is where, for Dalice, the installa-
else in the face. It is also coming to tion syntax specifically comes in. The
terms with something that is difficult viewer is forced to stand between the
to live down, by looking it in the face, two monitors, which stand on two,
instead of denying or repressing it. body-size pedestals. Only then can one
Thirdly, it is making contact, placing face Dalice in the first sense, and wit-
the emphasis on the addressee, and ness how she faces her loss. But while
acknowledging the need of that contact those who wish to see this work must
in order, quite simply, to sustain social face the woman, thus engaging in a
human existence. first-person/second-person exchange,
they must also turn their back on her.
Looking someone in the face, the It is impossible to face her without the
first aspect, can be seen as a thematic uncomfortable realization that she
undertow of both 2MOVE and Partners. is behind you, looking at your back
This is an aspect that hovers between turned to her, as if sending you away
ontology and epistemology. Can we from the intimacy of her home. The
see faces, can we look someone in the syntax of the third-person, which
face and what do we learn when we do excludes the object of representation
so? Bragas installation questions this. from the interaction, is at play at the
The second aspect, coming to terms, same time. This double position is
harbors a socio-political agenda in doubly moving, then, in the emotional
migratory culture: it makes us aware of sense of the term. The viewer-visitor is
how often we fail to face what people both admitted as a guest and not asked
go through when emigrating, to con- to stay. Dalice invites you in and sends
front their losses and sacrifices. This you away; she invites the intimacy
question is of a political and ethical or- of the encounter and stipulates the
der. Its counterpart and supplement is ineluctable strangeness that remains.
the veiled face that refuses to be seen, Due to this installationas distinct
and which considers the act of facing from a single-screen showingthe
always inappropriate and misfired. The woman figure is empowered, the face
third aspect, making contact, contains given agency and the viewers voyeur-
the artistic agenda of the exhibition; ism held at bay.
20 Discourse Mieke Bal

Cinematic conventions, introduced in One such moment or juncture that


the art of the twentieth centurythe superbly demonstrates the syntactic
century of this exhibitionare specifi- nature of the exhibitions power is
cally relevant here. Cinema is the art the transition between an artwork
of the masses. Thus there was a lot of that the curator-collector has herself
importance placed on its potential to contributed, called Partners (The Teddy
become an effective tool for political Bear Project), to the artwork following
activism both in the Soviet politics of it. Hendeles made an installation of
Sergei Eisenstein, who used a montage thousands of framed and matted photo-
of dialectical contrast as his primary graphs, mainly simple, small snapshots
tool, and in the early Hollywood tradi- acquired through the internet auction
tion of D.W. Griffith, whose organicist site e-Bay. The installation occupies two
montage of oppositions produced its floors, with iron staircases and balus-
own mass politics. Cinema is not simply trades that allow one to see both floors
a continuation of photography, but at all times. In the middle of the space
rather a medium which responds to are display cases reminiscent of natural
photography, critically and ambiva- history museums, in which more photos
lently. This response concerns not only and some old teddy bears are arrayed.
movement and time but also, more sub- All photographs have one element in
tly, the insistence on the limits of vis- common whose importance has been
ibility inherent in time, which cinema created by Hendeles through the act
inscribes in the black intervals between of collecting: in each photograph, a
frames. Temporality enforces syntax. teddy bear is visible. Between this large
installation and the next room there is
Thus photography serves as cinemas a transition that binds and severs at the
scenario or storyboard, and cinema is same time, and it is one of facing.
photographys commentary: a meta-
photography. This is emphatically the After two crowded galleries, a near-
case in Partners. With photography as empty third one beckons. A sculpture
its storyboard, this exhibition ani- of a young adolescent boy kneeling in
mates the visual scenario by means a pose of prayer is all there is. His back
of cinematic strategies. If we see the is turned to those who entering from
photographs and other singular works the photo galleries. Slowed down by the
as words, they become cinematic time-consuming, and indeed, time-
thanks to syntax. These cinematic stopping Teddy Bear Project installation,
strategies include the obvious ones, one is not too rushed to see the boys
such as the construction of a space face. Eventually, though, this moment
that is proper to the exhibition and becomes inevitable. An instant of total
that offers connections to the outside shock occurs when discovers that the
world without coinciding with it; the boys face is Hitlers. The sculpture is
tension between movement and time, Him by Maurizio Cattelan, from 2001.
each possessed by its own rhythm;
and the deployment of stylistic figures The contrast between the intimate
that thicken the narrative and change installation of the photo archive, which
its pace, such as those of montage (e.g. invites us to linger in this installation-
dissolves) and framing (e.g. close-ups). within-the-installation, and the
The cinematic conventions that, I lone figure seen from the back in an
contend, are the soul of the exhibition otherwise empty gallery, produces
Partners come to operate most power- the estranging sense of a sharp cut
fully at a few key junctures. There, we between one episode and the next, set
meet the syntax of the face. in a completely different location. The
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 21

contrast here is one between multitude becomes photography once again: it eyes are mercifully out
and singularity, between overwhelm- stops time, undermining the continuity of reach. Instead, his
ing and meditative, between welcom- that the cinematic had just instated. At large eyeslooking,
ing warmth and cold loneliness. the edge of syntax, it imposes a qualita- but not at usmust be
tive leap indifferent to linear time. looking into a mirror,
This contrast sets up an expectation And, since time and space become the mirror of history
of contrast on the level of content as intricate in the same move, close-ups that we have just left.
well. Indeed, a sometimes convincing, undermine spatial continuity as well. This sculpture can be
sometimes deceptive sense of comfort They are abstractions, isolating the said to be mirroring
and safety is created by means of an object from the time-space coordinates evil.
old-fashioned, homey living room, in which we were moving as if natu-
illuminated by domestic lamps and rally. Close-ups immediately cancel Since close-ups are
over-written by the even more old- the sense of wholeness that precedes cinematic images that
fashioned aesthetic of a nineteenth them, throwing us out of linear time, counter the linearity of
century museum of natural history, and leaving us alone with a relation- time, the deployment
with its odd classificatory drive and ship to the image that is pure affect. of this form here to (re)
crowded showcases. This cozy ambi- present a figure who
ance contrasts with the danger to Intimate Strangers orchestrated the great-
which this child-size kneeling doll Through its syntactic centripetal force, est catastrophe ever is
seems to be exposed. But, symmetrical the face gathers close the relational a way of protesting a
to Dalice behind our backs, the doll quality of exhibitions. In Dalice, the certain conception of
turns its back to us. This has the effect slight movement of the image itself, nationhood, history
of pulling us closer, compelling us to accompanying the moving face as if and time. By virtue
approach, to walk to the other side, to with empathy, signals the intimate of being exhibited
see its face, bend over in the typical relationship between the artist and the after Partners (The
physical condescension with which we portrayed individual. Teddy Bear Project), this
approach children, people in wheel- sculpture militates, in a
chairs and small people. Perhaps we As it functions as a cinematic close-up, way it might not given
seek to keep the doll company. Cattelans sculpture Him, while techni- a different exhibition
cally not a photograph, does three syntax, against the
The movement performed by the things to the relationship between pho- historical conception
viewer is the kinetic equivalent of a tography and cinema and to the rela- that construes time as
zoom, from a long shot to a close-up. tionship between the exhibition space inevitably linear and
And, after we turn around and zoom and the outside world. First, it instills unstoppable, a concep-
in, the face we finally come to see in us the sense that, incredibly, this tion that puts the past
against the backdrop of the teddy bear excessively realistic sculpture is more at a distance. Produc-
galleriesdestroys any lingering photographic than all of the thousands ing a close-up of Hitler
sense of safety, warmth or comfort. of photographs in the gallery we just is a way of bringing
exited: it is more precise, more read- him, and everything
Through the syntax of the face, the able, because it is larger in scale. At the he stands for, into the
tension between expecting a face we same time, the object of the photo-real- present tense. This is
do not recognize and seeing one we do istic representation is shocking enough what syntax can do.
creates a sense of fear, if only for a split to stop us in our tracks. Here, physical
second. This face, so low that we have and psychic arrests coincide, exag-
to mentally or even physically crouch gerating each others effect. Finally,
down to look it in the eyes, is the like Diane Arbuss tiny self-portrait,
close-up, isolated and abstracted from which opens the show, the eyes can be
Hendeless photo installation Partners looked into, but they dont look back.
(The Teddy Bear Project), where it was If Arbuss miniature is a model for the
visually absent but constantly if im- kind of photographic gaze that this
plicitly evoked. The close-up in cinema show mobilizes, then Hitlers glassy
22 Studies Mary Anne Staniszewski

NOTES

Art Space,
1Since the 1980s, I
have been involved with
Exit Art as a critic and
historian, as well as

Manifesto,
a contributor to their
catalogues. I have been a
member of the Board of
Directors since 1994 and

Laboratory
in 2006, working with co-
founders and co-directors
Jeanette Ingberman and
Papo Colo, I founded a
curatorial incubator,
a vehicle for presenting
exhibitions dealing with
critical issues I felt were
not adequately addressed
by the mainstream art In response to Manifesta Journals festo for what creative curating can be.
world. The curatorial editorial questions on the Grammar This essay features the role of the cura-
incubator also served of the Exhibition, I will propose that tor; the inextricable link between the
as an opportunity to all elements of exhibitionsconcept, institution presenting the exhibition
work with young and installation, catalogue, invitationbe and the type of programming pro-
emerging artists, scholars produced with an awareness of their duced; the exhibition venue as an ex-
and curators, and the language of form, conventions, perimental laboratory; the treatment of
Exit Art directors, potential meanings and audiences, all aspects of an exhibition as aesthetic
curators and staff, to and will focus on one particularly creations; and the engagement with a
realize exhibitions and successful example in exhibition- broad range of social issues, media and
catalogues. making. I will also raise the following audiences. I am affiliated with Exit Art,
general question: What are examples so this essaybased on recollections,
2M. Keith Booker, of exhibition-making as a practice that interviews and researchis written
Encyclopedia of explores diverse methods, considers from the point of view of an enthusiast
Literature and Politics: the aesthetic potential of all aspects and a supporter of the institution1.
Censorship, Revolution, of the project, poses any variety of
and Writing,(October 26, cultural and social questions, includes Exit Art was established in 1982 by its
2009). a spectrum of media and addresses co-founders and co-directors, Jeanette
multiple and changing audiences? Ingberman and Papo Colo, as a center
3ABC No Rio describes My chief concern is to determine how for experimentation in the curatorial
its history as follows: curating can be a creative, powerful, arts. Since its founding, all elements of
We trace our genesis vital force that contributes to and even Exit Art have been subject to aesthetic,
to The Real Estate Show, transforms the social landscape. creative, experimental and politi-
New Years Day, 1980, an cal scrutiny. For the first exhibition,
intervention in which In the following essay, I will review the Illegal America, Ingberman and Colo
more than thirty artists history of a cultural space that is an gathered together artists work that not
occupied an abandoned answer to these questions, an art center only countered convention but actu-
building and mounted where, for some twenty-seven years, ally broke the law. The featured works
an exhibition addressing such creative experiments have taken ranged from Louis Aragons 1931 poem
New York City housing place: Exit Art in New York City. I Red Front to the collective ABC No
and land use policies. consider these almost three decades of Rios 1980 Real Estate Show. In Red
That show was quickly programming to be an on-going mani- Front, Aragon called for a revolu-
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 23

tion in France; he was then arrested downtown art world Statue of Liberty, shut down by the police,
and received a five-year suspended standing in a loft wrapped in swaths of the artwork confiscated.
sentence.2 When more than thirty cloth, gazing up at the industrial light The City was forced
artists mounted an exhibition taking she holds in her raised right hand (fig. into negotiations with
on New York City housing issues in an 1). Colo and Ingberman wanted to do the artists and offered
abandoned city-owned building, the their own version of that symbol of them the storefront
police closed the show3. It was from America: the Statue of Liberty symbol- and basement at 156
these events that the community center izes the status of the immigrant going Rivington Street. That
ABC No Rio was born. from illegal to legal. This was the first space became ABC No
of innumerable announcements and Rio. See www.abcnorio.
The subject of Illegal America was posters for Exit Art that were exem- org/about/overview.html
portentous, for Exit Art would, in the plary in design and served as overtures (November 7, 2007).
years that followed, become an anti- to the exhibitions.
dote to the self-censorship that thrives 4From Exit Arts
in the art world due to those ever-pres- Ingberman and Colo agree: The mission statement, 2007.
ent political, institutional and econom- show starts with the invitation in
ic forces that govern what survives the mail, the poster. That graphic is 5All quotes from
as culture in the United States. The the first piece of the show. All Exit Papo Colo and Jeanette
exhibition opened in 1982, the second Art programming begins with these Ingberman in this
year of the Reagan Revolution and mass-produced, freely distributed essay are taken from
what would become the greed is good and potentially owned-by-anyone interviews with the
decade. The socially conscious, mixed- announcement/works, all of which author November 4, 2007
media experimentation of late 1960s have been designed by Colo. Some and January 3, 2008.
and 1970s was giving way to glamorous more memorable examples include
objects that sold well in the market- the poster for the 2004 exhibition The 6U.S. law distinguishes
place. This was also the beginning of Presidency (fig. 2) and a 1993 feminist between intent and
the culture wars, the 1980s version show, 1920: The Subtlety of Subversion/ use. While accidentally
of the conservative rights relentless The Continuity of Intervention (fig. 3). ripping a dollar bill it
battle to disarm both the liberal arts Produced during the ascendancy of the is not against the law,
and the allied territories of progres- Imperial Presidency of baby Bush, whoever mutilates, cuts,
sive culture. Established tochallenge The Presidency poster image is of a defaces, disfigures, or
social, political, sexual, or aesthetic toddler dressed in a tuxedo, holding a perforates, or unites or
norms and to raise difficult questions large Homeland Security seal in one cements together, or does
of race, ethnicity, gender and equal- hand and his too-big top hat with the any other thing to any
ity, it would not be an exaggeration to other, while precariously perched on bank bill, draft, note, or
say that Exit Art has been a haven for top of a globe that floats in a beautiful other evidence of debt
what might not have been seen, heard, blue sky filled with white clouds. The issued by any national
witnessed, presented, performed and exhibition 1920 showcased the work of banking association, or
discussed it had not existed. more than fifty women artists who ei- Federal Reserve bank,
ther emerged in the 1990s or had taken or the Federal Reserve
But this first exhibition was not only on similar issues in the 1960s, 1970s System, with intent to
prophetic in theme, it was predictive of and 1980s. The poster features a black- render such bank bill,
the character and philosophy of Exit and-white photo of a naked woman, draft, note, or other
Art, in that all the components of the crouched with her head bent so that her evidence of debt unfit
show were creative works in their own body is completely cloaked by her long to be reissued, shall
right. The poster for Illegal America is wavy hair. The unidentifiable figure be fined under this
a striking reworking of one of the most can be seen as an indelible reminder of title or imprisoned not
famous icons of our freedom of speech, the historical anonymity of women. more than six months,
and so many other inalienable rights. or both. See United
Designed and photographed by Colo, This concern for graphic design was States Code, Section 333,
Ingberman transformed herself into a also seen in the Illegal America cata- Mutilation of National
24 Studies Mary Anne Staniszewski

Fig. 1 Poster: Illegal


America, Exit Art
inaugural show, Poster
Design, Papo Colo,
Curators, Jeanette
Ingberman and Papo
Colo, presented at
Franklin Furnace, New
York, 1982

Fig. 2. Poster: The


Presidency, Poster
Design, Papo Colo,
Curators, Jeanette
Ingberman and Papo
Colo, Exit Art, New York,
2004

1 2

Bank Obligation, logue, an eight-by-eleven-by-two-inch without us having to say it verbally and


Findlaw,<http:// cardboard box, suggesting the brown without using didactic materials.
caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/ wrappers of banned publications
casecode/uscodes/18/ and other illicit stuff. The catalogue The materials comprising Illegal
parts/ichapters/17/ functioned as a distinctive interactive America were not without precedent,
sections/ piece: To open the book, the reader given so much Conceptual Art of the
section_333.html> had to commit a transgression. The preceding decades. But they were
(November 10 , 2007). boxs two front flaps were sealed with nonetheless distinctive. As Ingberman
a dollar bill (fig. 4). By breaking the remembers, The very first show was
7This is my own term. dollar bill, the person opening the an anti-exhibition, all documentation.
Colo has used this term book was breaking the law: to destroy But the idea was so strong. Composed
for many years, and U.S. currency is a misdemeanor. As of documents of censored artwork,
variations of it have Ingberman related, You had to break Illegal America included newspaper
been used by many the dollar to open the catalogue, you articles, photographs, artists state-
others, such as cultural had to make this gesture. This is some- ments, court papers, transcripts from
worker and artist thing we carried over to other shows. trials and mimeographed information.
producer. Cornel West The public makes an action that really The site selected for the exhibition
uses the term cultural explains what the show is. We did this was crucial. Presented before Exit Art
worker in his well- with the performances for Parallel moved into its first downtown Man-
known essay The New History: The Hybrid State (19911992). hattan space later that year, the show
Cultural Politics of At the entrance there were three doors. was installed at Franklin Furnaces
Difference, Out There: The first was three and a half feet high, unfinished, ground-floor loft. The ar-
Marginalization and the next four [] [It was] only when chitecture worked so well, remembers
Contemporary Culture, you reach[ed] the area designated as Colo. It was small, tiny, like a base-
Russell Ferguson, the hybrid state that you [could] walk ment, which helped the spirit of the
Martha Gever, Tinh T. through the doorway standing tall. The show. Colos installation was unusual.
Mihn-ha, and Cornel Illegal catalogue and this exhibition in- Some documents were hung with the
West eds. (Cambridge, stallation gave you the idea of the show bottom edge flush to the floor, such
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 25

Fig. 3 Poster: 1920: The


Subtlety of Subversion/
The Continuity of
Intervention, Poster
Design, Papo Colo,
Curators, Jeanette
Ingberman and
Papo Colo,
Exit Art, New York, 1993

5
Fig. 4 Catalogues:
Illegal America ,
Catalogue Design, Papo
Colo, Curators, Jeanette
Ingberman and Papo
Colo, Exit Art,
New York,1982

that visitors had to breach traditional with an awareness of the institutional, Massachusetts: The
gallery viewing behavior, bending creative or ideological limits of an en- MIT Press and the New
or squatting to view these materials. terprise can be a cultural producer in Museum, 1990), 19-36.
Ingberman saw these demands on any field. Different from most art mu- In my book Believing
the visitor in terms of giving you a seum directors and curators, Colo and is Seeing: Creating the
sense of illegality, secrecy, and sur- Ingbermans self-consciously inventive Culture of Art (New York:
reptitiously looking at something. For and analytical approach to the varied Penguin USA, 1995),
twenty-five years, Colo and Ingber- components of a cultural center fore- most of which I wrote in
man have treated the entire exhibition goes what is often taken for granted or the late 1980s, I used the
experience as a theater, where artists, accepted as convention. This type of term artist producer,
visitors and curators are actors, like In- engaged multi-media production is in but in the 1990s found
gberman when she took on the role of keeping with the experiments of the I had changed the term
Liberty for the inaugural poster. international avant-gardes of the first to the more broad-based
half of the twentieth century, such as cultural producer.
the Surrealist and Soviet groups, as
Cultural Producers and well as the artist cultural producers 8Founded in 1991
the Art of Exhibitions of the decades that followed, ranging as a short wave radio
These two curators, artists, writers, from Andy Warhol to Yoko Ono, to program, FIRE then
producers, designers, historians, poets, formative museum directors Alfred moved to the internet
actors, impresariosand their many Barr and Alexander Dorner, to activist and was instrumental in
collaboratorsexemplify the cultural collectives like ACT UP or the bilin- broadcasting sections
producer. This is the best term I can gual Feminist International Radio of the Beijing Womens
come up with to describe an individual Endeavor (FIRE). The concept of a conference. It is an
who attempts to imaginatively and crit- cultural producer is an excellent model example of the way
ically transform, rather than merely for all curators. It offers an approach to media technologies have
feed, the system. Such contributions exhibition-making that can facilitate enhanced international
are most easily recognized in the work creative experimentation, intellectual activist networks.
of great artists, but anyone who works rigor and eloquence.
26 Studies Mary Anne Staniszewski

Figs. 5 Counterculture:
Alternative Information
from the Underground
Press to the Internet,
Curator, Brian Wallis
with Researcher Melissa
Rachleff,Installation
Design, Papo Colo, Exit
Art, New York, 1996

5 7
Fig. 7 Renegades,
Curators, Jeanette
Ingberman and Papo
Colo, Installation
Design, Papo Colo,
Exit Art, New York,
20062007

Figs. 8 and 9
The Studio Visit,
Curators, Jeanette
Ingberman and Papo
Colo,Installation Design,
Papo Colo, Exit Art
New York, 2006

9The power of One of the areas where evidence of intention has been to devise installa-
display and the history those working as cultural producers tions so that the ideas of the show come
of such installations by is most visible is in the art form of through without having to read a lot of
cultural producers was installation design, which has been labels and texts. This does not mean
the subject of my book, an important medium for Ingberman that labels, graphics and documenta-
The Power of Display: A and Colo. Their awareness of the tion are not used (these were, of course,
History of Exhibitions at power of display was present from the materials of this inaugural show).
the Museum of Modern this organizations founding. When But Illegal America did not have a tradi-
Art (Cambridge: MIT creating an exhibition, says Colo, you tional exhibition design, where works
Press, 1998). create a totality; you are not just seeing are sequestered on pristine white
an exhibition, you are a part of it. The walls for decontextualized aesthetic
10For a survey of these installation itself is like a piece in the contemplation. The installation of
exhibitions, see my essay show. densely packed materials, displayed
An Exit Is Always from very low to the ground to high
an Entrance (a short With Illegal America and in all Exit near the ceiling, offered an immersive
history of Exit Art), exhibitions, adds Ingberman, the experience for viewing suppressed
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 27

works, gestures, poetry, performances


and theater. This type of documentary
installation was chosen for a number
of key Exit Art exhibitions, such as En-
durance: The Information, The End, and
Tehching Hsieh One Year Performance
1981-1982. Illegal America was staged
a second time in 1990, after the fall
of the Berlin Wall, to include original
works (some of which were no longer
considered illegal) as well as new mate-
rial. Ingberman made the observation
that a comparison between these two
shows was an instructive opportunity
to make clear that Illegal America was
not so much a legal show as a political
one. The political context, after all,
determined what was outside the law.

Collectives and
Individuals:
In addition to their commitment to
raising questions about the censored
and the sanctioned, Exit Art has
consistently presented the activities
and histories of alternative and activist
communities, independent media, and
a variety of artist and underground
9
graphics, posters and publications.
Some of the highlights include the 1987
poster show, Concrete Crisis: Urban sphere. Pages of newspapers, journals, Exit Art History 1982-
Images of the 80s, organized by the magazines, zines and documents were 2009 (forthcoming 2010).
Political Art Documentation/Distribu- presented under plexiglass on long 11FromExitArt
tion (PADD); the 1993 Comic Power: thin tables fitted with stools, as well as History:Reactions,
Independent/ Underground Comix, on display shelves. ExitArt:
USA, curated by John Carlin and Carlo <http://www.exitart.org/
McCormick; and the 1996 Counter- Another version of the documentary site/pub/exit_archive/
culture: Alternative Information from installation was used for Exit Arts history/2002.html>
the Underground Press to the Internet, twenty-fifth anniversary show, which (January 9, 2008).
curated by Brian Wallis and Exit Arts documented performances, theater
former curator, Melissa Rachleff. As exhibitions and actions. Entitled 12Library of Congress,
has been the case for almost all of the Renegades, this 200607 exhibi- <http://memory.loc.gov/
exhibitions, Colo conceived the overall tion included photo- and time-based ammem/index.html>
installation design for Counterculture, documentation ranging from photo- (November 30, 2008).
which involved a number of features graphs of Charlotte Moorman sus-
(figs. 5 and 6). The posters and materi- pended from an eight-floor Exit Art 13This 1982 quote was
als were displayed in salon-style, skied window over West Broadway, playing reprinted in the 1993
arrangements, reminiscent of the her cello for the 1985 mythopoetic press release for The
way they originally would have been Oracle show, to selections from the Hybrid State, May 22,
wheat-pasted on buildings, lamp- 1995 exhibition that coined the term for 1993.
posts and any flat surface in the public a now commonly-recognized practice,
28 Studies Mary Anne Staniszewski

Fig. 10 The Design Show: Endurance, to videos from the 2002 the show, a communal, interactive open
Exhibition Invitations Show People: Downtown Directors and studio. The most thorough of Exit
in the U.S.A., 194092, the Play of Time, which was curated by Arts art-is-life shows, however, was
Curators, Jeanette Norman Frisch and former Exit Art the 1994 Let the Artist Live! For thirty
Ingberman and Papo Colo, curator Jodi Hanel, and featured the six days, twelve artists and two actors
Installation Design, Papo early plays of directors such as Richard worked, ate, slept, chatted, argued,
Colo, Exit Art, Forman, Meredith Monk and Robert cooked and created in the space with
New York, 1993 Wilson. The Renegades installation was spouses, friends, lovers, children,
striking for its varied and inventive colleagues and gallery viewers. This
Fig. 11 Reactions, Exit formulas for displaying time-based happening, experiment and temporary
Art, Curators, Jeanette media, including monitors (individual creative commune was one of Exit
Ingberman and Papo and in series, with headphones and Arts more memorable explorations of
Colo,Installation Design, without), as well as video projections life as art. Both Ingberman and Colo
Papo Colo, on walls. Perhaps most dramatic and on separate occasions described Let the
New York, 2002 innovative were the videos projected Artist Live! as an instance where the
on floor screens that were titled on installation articulated the ideas of the
an angle to aid viewing. (fig. 7). To my show. On the other hand, this was not
knowledge, no one had ever thought so much an effective exhibition design
to use a gallery floor in such a man- as an environment where everything
ner since Herbert Bayer tilted rugs off worked together to produce a total, col-
the floor in a similar manner at the lective work of art.
Museum of Modern Arts famous 1938
Bauhaus exhibition. ConceptPlus:
14Introduction, Exit Arts mission to make visible the
Papo Colo and Jeanette A counterpoint to Exit Arts commit- creative multiplicities of a cultural
Ingberman, The Hybrid ment to collective and community space was manifest in an exhibition
State (exhibition projects were the many shows that fea- that featured the aesthetic power of
catalogue), essays: tured individual artists work and pro- both invitations and exhibition design
Luis Camnitzer, Papo cesses. During its first decade, Exit Art as the artworks of the show: the 1993
Colo, Joshua Decter, presented the first major one-person The Design Show: Exhibition Invitations
Jimmie Durham, shows or breakthrough exhibitions in the U.S.A., 194092. This was the
Guillermo Gomez-Pena, for many artists who are now well- first show to present a comprehensive
Celeste Olalquiaga and known. A compelling and charismatic overview of exhibition invitations
Warren Niesluchowski show was the 2006 The Studio Visit, from museums, galleries and alterna-
and Krzysztof Wodiczko, composed of 160 videos created by tive spaces in the United States. Thanks
(New York: Exit Art, artists who were asked to make a tape to an unusual presentation technique,
1992), 108. about their methods and workspaces. devised by Colo, the visitor was given
Videos were screened on the walls, on a unique opportunity to view both the
15Ibid., 109. the floor and in individual booths, as front and back of images and docu-
well as online, creating a virtual com- ments. Thin plastic wires were strung
16Joshua Decter, The munity of artists in their studios (figs. throughout the galleries to create
Fractious Hybrid State 8 and 9). Related in theme, but very clotheslines on which the invitations
(Of Things), The Hybrid different in terms of display, was the were hung. Those with folded elements
State, 66. 1997 La Tradicon: Performing Paint- were installed on display tables (fig. 10).
ing. Artists were invited to transform
17Lewis Hyde, Trickster an area of Exit Art into a studio space, Colo reworked this display invention
makes this world: where they painted during the hours for a very different 2002 exhibition,
mischief, myth, and art the galleries were open to the public. Reactions. Intended as an investigation
(New York: Farrar, Straus Visitors could chat and ask questions of how the events of September 11,
and Giroux, 1998), 78. as they watched artists create their 2001 altered peoples behavior toward
works in what was, for the duration of others, the city, and daily life; how
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 29

18TerrorVision, Press
Release, Exit Art, 2004.

10

11
30 Studies Mary Anne Staniszewski

the events changed their perceptions increasingly traffic in information,


of reality and the world at large, the drugs, weapons, art and people.
show included all the entries received Reactions and ConceptPlus were
from a post-9/11 global open call. The crystallizations and reworkings of Exit
submissions, which came from some 25 Arts founding mission to be not only
countries, had one requirement: they a center for aesthetic and curatorial
had to fit on an eight-and-a-half-by- innovation, but a forum for critical
eleven sheet of paper. The 2,500 pieces, cultural, social and political ideas.
installed alphabetically by artists last After 9/11, the art world for the most
names, were either hung on the wires part, remained silent. The follow-
or presented in booklets, and have ing January, Exit Art, as it had done
since been acquired by the Library of throughout its history of presenting
Congresss American Memory Project programming engaged with all kinds
(fig. 11). of urgent issuesamong them, the
AIDS crisis, the debt crisis, homeless-
Although Ingberman and Colo did not ness, assorted varieties of identity
realize it at the time, Reactions initi- politics and the genetic revolution
ated a new method for curating that once again came up with an inspiring,
would be formalized and described a complex and creative response to this
year later as ConceptPlus, with the tragedy.
2003 Exit Biennial: The Reconstruction, Although Reactions was conceived
the first exhibition in Exit Arts new as a composition created by and for
space on 10th Avenue. The ConceptPlus the public, it was a revelation for both
- process works this way: Ingberman curators. As Ingberman recalls, We
and Colo come up with a theme or idea received responses from all over the
and then publicize the proposal. The world from Pakistan, Cameroon,
primary medium for this message is an Finland, from artists like Bob Gober,
open call via e-mail. Their intention is a four-year-old kid, a seventy-five-
to democratize the process of view- year-old retired WWII veteran. I
ing artwork, to avoid the too common realized that Colo and I could do a show
curatorial trap of just exhibiting that could go so outside the typical
work from the same circle of artists contributors to our audience for an art
that you know, and to instead tap the exhibition. Some of the most moving
creativity that was so strongly mani- work, really creative work, was done
fest in the Reactions show. Rather than by people not in the art world. Colo
producing a conventional group exhi- continues, Creativity is a right, a
bition by gathering together individual human right, not just an artists right;
works tenuously related by a theme, creativity is not owned just by art-
ConceptPlus engenders a collective ists, but by culture. It is human to be
statement produced by all the artists. creative.
Among the ConceptPlus shows were
the 2003/2004 L Factor, examining La- The Multicultural
tino culture in the United States not as and The Hybrid State:
marginalized, but as fully fused with The open-borders strategy that so
mainstream culture; the 2005 Homo- marked Reactions is but one manifesta-
museum, conceived as an art museum tion of crossbred character that has
dedicated to lesbian, gay, bisexual and marked Exit Art since it was founded.
transgendered icons and histories; and Similar to the more recent Concept-
the 2005 Exit Biennial II: Traffic, which Plus, an idea that has served as a basis
investigated how the word traffic for the structure and programming of
is shaping our global landscape as we Exit Art throughout its history, is the
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 31

hybrid state, which was described by corporation of the other by offering Fig. 12 Love/War/Sex,
Colo in 1982 as: instead models of mutual influence and Curators, Jeanette
transformation of the hybrid state. Ingberman and Papo Colo,
the accumulation of social From a national perspective in the Installation
stories, psychological attitudes, United States, these years also marked Design, Papo Colo, Exit
massive immigration, race a zenith in the visibility of the AIDS Art, New York, 2002
relations, and economic mirage crisis; the attacks on gay, lesbian,
that is changing our life. bisexual and transgender commu-
nities; the dismantling of womens
In 1992, Exit Art defined itself as a reproductive rights; and the recogni-
hybrid cultural space dedicated to tion of the failures to achieve racial
transcultural, interdisciplinary ex- and ethnic equality. In order to include
plorations of contemporary art. From installation photographs and evalu-
December 1991 to January 1992, as a ations of the performances and the
culmination of the previous decade of show, the catalogue was published
issue-oriented group exhibitions and near the end of 1992, the last full year
one-person shows, Exit Art produced of the ReaganBush I - era. As essayist
an exhibition, performance series and Joshua Dector noted, as he was writing
publication titled The Hybrid State. his text, Los Angeles was in flames
These projects were part of a year-long after the acquittals of the L.A. police
Parallel History initiative dedicated who brutally beat Rodney King. It was
to investigating alternatives to treating within this context that the Chicano,
the diversity of the Americas as an in- feminist, immigrant, ethnic, homeless,
32 Studies Mary Anne Staniszewski

postcolonial and innumerable other marked not only the organizations


subjects and cultures were rendered in reputation and concepts like the hybrid
the portrait homages of artists who state, but the icons and figures that
had been so important to the Exit Art have become evocative symbols, ter-
community during this first decade. ritories and metaphors energizing the
The installation and performances entire enterprise.
were treated as collaborations that
eroded traditional boundaries between Tricksters:
artist and curator, and were intended The principal figure, or creature,
to engender practices and geogra- inhabiting Exit Artserving as a model
phies of the hybrid state. In 2008, for curating and all the activities that
Colo affirmed his belief that the idea have been produced at the spacehas
of the hybrid state still holds: The been described by Colo as having been
Americas are a hybrid state. Everyone there from the beginning, but we didnt
has their own particular experience know it then. The term comes to us in
of hybridity in America, as Krzysztof the 1990s: the trickster. Every culture
[Wodiczko] described in the Hybrid has a character of the trickster, who is
catalogue. We feel we are a hybrid or- always on the border of things. There is
ganization. If you compare the spaces a great book that describes the trick-
of New York City, you will see an sters relation to American culture:
agenda of the dominant culture there,
but you do not see that here. The trickster is a boundary-
crosser. Every group has its edge,
To say that Exit Art has not only been its sense of in and out, and trick-
of, but ahead of its time may sound ster is always there, at the gates of
clichd, yet it nonetheless remains the city and the gates of life, mak-
true. Before the term multicultural ing sure there is commerce. He
gained currency in the late 1980s and also attends the internal bound-
early 1990s, Exit Art had had a fun- aries by which groups articulate
damental commitment to an inclusive their social life. We constantly
and diverse presentation of art and distinguishright and wrong, sa-
cultures. Before the interdisciplin- cred and profane, clean and dirty,
ary and multimedia conversion had male and female, young and old,
taken hold, Exit Art had hardwired living and deadand in every case
this approach into their programming trickster will cross the line and
from its inception. The most obvious confuse the distinction. Trickster
examples of foresightin addition to is the creative idiot, therefore, the
all the groundbreaking topics of the wise fool, the gray-haired baby,
exhibitions, performances, texts and the cross dresser, the speaker of
panelsis, of course, the introduc- sacred profanities.
tion of scores of artists who are now
internationally known. With the clar- The trickster pervades Exit Arts pub-
ity of hindsight (and the enthusiasm lic presentations and private inspira-
permissible for history written at such tions. When asked about the icon of
close range), the manifestos, poetry, the hawk on Exit Arts stationary and
catalogues, exhibitions, installations, on the banner that has hung above its
posters, performances, screenings, entrance since the 1990s, Colo replies,
symposia and strategies of Exit Art The hawk is symbol of the American
seem, at times, to have been directed Indian trickster, the one that survives
by clairvoyance. This intuition, intel- in the cities. We have a whole family
ligence, imagination and life force of hawks on Fifth Avenue, and this is
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 33

one of the fastest birds. There is a lot long trend of eschewing anything
of mythological meaning in the hawk: but innocuously themed group shows
survivor, fast, symbol of theater. and a predominance of one-person
The trickster as changeling is seen in retrospectives (until very recently, the
Exit Arts quick, imaginative and intel- person was almost exclusively white
lectually rigorous responses to local and male). With the exception of the
and global questions, problems and pos- questions of identity politics, this was
sibilities. This engagement with critical so different from previous decades
issues of our time is seen in their when major museums like the MoMA
programming dealing with science and featured all kinds of thematic and
the environment. Exit Art was the first political exhibitions, including those
U.S. institution to present a major ex- dealing with WWII, such as the 1942
hibition on the so-called genome, DNA Road to Victory and the 1943 Airways to
or biotech revolutions with their 2000 Peace. In 2004, one of the ConceptPlus
Paradise Now: Picturing the Genetic Rev- shows was TerrorVision, a study of ter-
olution, curated by Marvin Heiferman ror as depicted through the ingenuity
and Carole Kismaric. This was the first and inventiveness of todays artists.
in Exit Arts Unknown Territories The most direct and, in many ways,
series, which dealt with the impact of most dramatic experiment in pro-
scientific advances on contemporary gramming that addressed our current
culture and was followed by Brain- geopolitical situation was Love/War/
Wave: Common Senses in 2008. Also in Sex, which ran from December 2007
2008, Exit Art hosted the first major to January 2008 (fig. 12). Camouflage-
U.S. exhibition examining the new draped interiors, floor-to-ceiling wall
area of BioArt with Corpus Extremus texts, real weapons and memorable
(Life+), curated by Boryana Rossa. In artworks collided within this charged
2006, The Drop took on the global water space to revelatory effect.
and climate change crisis, after which These twenty-five years of innovative
Ingberman and Colo decided to launch programming at Exit Art make visible
a series of programs devoted to Social how exhibitions and institutions engen-
Environmental Aesthetics (S.E.A.). The der each other, through the participa-
first project was the documentary show tion of not only the directors, curators
Environmental Performance Actions and staff, artists, musicians, perform-
(E.P.A.) in 2008, exhibited in the lower- ers, designers and collaborators, but
level video lounge, performance, music also the visitors and communities in
and bar space. both actual and virtual space.

During the first years after 9/11, there


were virtually no exhibitions or pro-
gramming presented by the New York
mainstream art world dealing with
the so-called Age of Terror or the fact
that we were, by 2003, waging wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq. With some
exceptions at the Whitney Museum
most notably, The American Effect
(2003), curated by Larry Rinder, and
Memorials of War (2004), curated by
David KiehlManhattan museums
could only be described as escapist.
This was part of a more than decade-
34 Practice Bartomeu Mar

The Tasks
of Curating

In a local Spanish newspaper former had any sense that curating or mak-
director of the National Museum of ing exhibitions was a profession. In
Catalan Art in Barcelona, Eduard Car- the mid-1980s in Spain, there was no
bonell, recently argued that museums museum scene, nor any other institu-
of contemporary art tell a history of art tional scene, for that matter, that could
which is authored by their direc- be identified from abroad. There was,
tors. This implies a personal history of of course, an art scene whose history
the arts of the present and the recent and present were fraught with riveting
past. While I dont agree with his exact tensions. There was also a fragile art
formulation, I have to acknowledge market, and art criticism published in
that there is some truth in the state- newspapers. But this was not enough
ment. Authoring history is not to imagine that one could, someday,
personalizing it, but proposing a lens make art exhibitions as a profession.
to interpret it. And within and outside This period coincided with two oppos-
the institutions we call museums of ing realities: one created by the media
contemporary art, engaging with the and specialized press (the return of
schizophrenic mandate to read and painting, art as a commodity, the rule
write history at the same time and of the market, etc.) and the other by the
constituting numerous narratives to practice of many artists and collectives
address the what, how and why artists that opposed the dominant ideologies
do what they do are major tasks for of liberalism and the commodification
curators. In fact, curators tell stories of cultural icons. Both coexisted, just
within and about history. as they continue to cohabit today.

Institutions tend to determine the In the 1980s, Spain was in the midst
type of exhibitions and discourses by of a political transition, shifting from
shaping their material aspects both Francos dictatorship to the democrat-
architecturally and financially. And ic, proto-federal system that we have
material aspects tend to shape intel- today. The newly created museums led
lectual and ideological positions. Local the way to the construction of an art
contexts, in a globalized economy, still infrastructure that would take more
play a significant role in what we do as than twenty years to develop to a point
storytellers, or as authors. at which trained professionals would
Twenty years ago, one could not have be required. The management of mu-
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 35

seums and art centers is increasingly Those who work in institutions (public
professional, as are those responsible or private, flexible or rigid) must
for their content (exhibitions, publica- admit that their work is often like the
tions, public programs, management). biblical Adam naming the animals. By
The institutionalization of what was recycling vocabularies from previous
once a hobbyhorse or an interest generations or, to put it more simply,
of just a few is fairly logical, if quite by applying existing vocabularies to
recent. Curators emerge from specific new objects and phenomena, we expose
courses and schools as opposed to their unsuitability for the present and
pursuing the auto-didactic route that show the need to invent new terms:
was the basis for many generations of work; piece; installation; project;
curators until now. Therefore, is it not process. Developing the discourses
our job to keep the status quo of our surrounding art, whether essential or
local contexts, or to challenge them, collateral, and determining the ways
as has always been the practice of the they are conveyed through exhibitions,
avant-garde? symposia, books, the press, websites
and more have become some of the
What do we want museums primary pursuits of the profession.
(or art institutions of public Curating is about detecting a certain
interest in general) to be? shift, phenomenon or innovation on
the horizon of creation, inventing
The ideal museum of the other ways of creating junctures be-
past never really existed. tween artifacts laden with artistic in-
It is permanently under tent (i.e. works of art) and the different
construction everywhere. audiences that those works eventually
face; formalizing what has not yet been
I am not one to advocate the formula- said, that is, naming the animals. These
tion of norms, formulas or models that have been some of the curators tasks.
resolve problems before they have It is my feeling that a curator is not a
been fully stated or described. One shaman in touch with the beyond, but a
thing has made itself clear over the link on the chain: a chain of commerce
years: there are no systematic solutions or a chain of knowledge. It is almost
but rather personal, ethical positions impossible to pinpoint a priori to what
reflected in work. extent a term and real object corre-
36 Practice Bartomeu Mar

spond. But it is possible to venture an of contemporary art should be told


opinion on the distance between what through its exhibitions, not through an
e-flux says and what actually happens. analysis of works like words unbound
The distance between the articulation to the grammar of display.
of an exhibition, publication or project Major innovations in the sphere of
before it is produced and the reaction visual culturethat is, where the in-
to its fruition is the distance between fluence of art is felt in a broader field
the curator and the art critic. have been effected by artists. This is
true not only in terms of the evolution
Historically, the curators work is of forms and uses of materials, but also
most clearly recognizable through in terms of the rituals of physical and
the art exhibition. The importance of cognitive access, altering the distri-
the history of exhibitions has gained bution of values and meanings in the
more and more recognition over symbolic sphere. The architecture used
recent years. Indeed, the history of in the interiors of most museums
the exhibition is on the curriculum even those built after the radical chal-
in curatorship courses, and it will lenges to the art object levied by the
soon be a course in its own right in 1960s avant-gardetends to privilege
art departments at the most forward- a certain type of art, mostly painting
thinking universities in the United and sculpture. Such constructions
States. Art history has generally been ignored, for example, the needs for
taught, until recently, on the basis darkness and sound isolation for video
of the history of works of art, their projections, which recently became
formal characteristics and materials, the dominant language in exhibitions.
and the circumstances that contrib- Furthermore, most of the architects
uted to their coming into existence. who have constructed contempo-
Another history of art must be written, rary art museums in the last twenty
one aware that, although works of art years have not displayed remarkable
are conceived one at a time, they have sensitivity when it comes to art. What
rarely been displayed that way. Rather, they have shown is the ability to repeat
they are exhibited according to a deter- the architectural model suited to the
mined spatial grammar, one that has exhibition of painting and sculpture,
been increasingly contemplated and as well as a concern with the unique-
controlled by the artist. The history ness of the envelope of the buildings
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 37

they have constructed. Few architects I think of the figure and the function
seemed aware that the most interest- of the critic as someone who writes
ing innovations and evolutions were history unknowingly, at the very
taking place outside a museum circuit moment when the events take place.
that, only later and with a degree of Never has the mastery of writing and
difficulty, would house them. The task copy-editing been so necessary. Never
now falls to the curator to become an has it been so necessary to attend to
architectural commissioner, whether the quality of writing and look for new
in the construction of new structures readers in order for ideas to exist and
or the modification of existing ones. last over time.

In addition to the problems of produc- I am not capable of venturing an opin-


ing and packaging, one of the added ion on art discourse in the mass media
difficulties for the figure of the curator of the future. I dont think we should
is the problem of engaging in art criti- expect those media (whether public or
cism at a time when the figure of the privately owned) to help sustain the
classic critic has been dissolved in dis- professional ideologies of certain crit-
putes over taste and divergent academic ics of the past (todays curator-critics).
authorities. At a time when there are Nor will I dare predict how long cer-
few writers like Robert Hughes left to tain independent publications will be
articulate contemporary art concerns around, given that the very idea of in-
for a general public, and when the au- dependence is strange at a moment of
thority of criticism has been lost in the economic recession that seems to entail
Babel of opinions and ethereal media, cerebral recession as well. But I do like
the voice of the curator has taken on the to think about the future of the curator
function of the critic. This adds com- in terms of a new type of professional,
plexity to the task, while also giving it a one committed in life and ideas to
considerable dose of responsibility and making the world change through the
adding new requirements. impulse of art and everything art can
If, on the one hand, the curator-critic convey.
must express his or her ideas with
conviction and honesty, on the other he
or she feels an obligation toward lan-
guage, precision and literary elegance.
38 Studies Cathleen Chaffee

NOTES

1Marcel Broodthaers,

Situating
after an interview
with Irmeline Lebeer.
Translation Paul
Schmidt, Ten Thousand

Marcel Broodthaerss
Francs Reward, October
42 (Autumn 1987): 39-48.
Originally published
in Marcel Broodthaers:

Final Exhibitions
Catalogue - Catalogus
(Bruxelles: Socit des
expositions du Palais des
Beaux-Arts, 1974).

2Barbara Reise,
Incredible Belgium:
Impressions, Studio
International (October I believe that my exhibitions depended was dressed, as usual, in a somewhat
1974): 117. The exhibition and still depend on the memory of a worn suit befitting a down-on-his-luck
took place from 9 period when I experienced the cre- banker or, alternatively, a nineteenth
January 3 February ative situation in a heroic and solitary century pote maudit. The artists
1974. manner. In other words it used to be: costume matched his slightly marginal
read this, look at this. Today: Allow me persona, outmoded for a late twentieth
3The Dsseldorf to present to you. century avant-gardist. But his reputa-
exhibition took place tion was gaining steam.
from 16 May 9 July In 1974, Marcel Broodthaers (1924
1972, and Broodthaerss 1976) was invited to participate in a International attention had followed
Documenta installations group show at Brusselss Palais des Broodthaerss legendary 1972 exhibi-
at the Neue Galerie and Beaux-Arts alongside Carl Andre, tion at the Dsseldorf Kunsthalle, Sec-
Museum Fridericianum, Victor Burgin, Gilbert & George, On tion des Figures. Der Adler von Oligozn
from 30 June 8 October Kawara, Richard Long and Gerhard bis heute (The eagle from the Oligocene
1972. Richter, artists described at the time by to today), and his overlapping partici-
critic Barbara Reise as the equivalent pation in Documenta 5. At Documenta,
4According to Barry of gild-edged stocks certain to make the Muse dArt Ancien, Galerie du XXe
Barker, Museum of a work of a comprehensible and visu- Sicle ended Broodthaerss four-year-
Modern Art curator ally pleasing nature. Broodthaerss long tenure of his own museum, which
Kynaston McShine asked contribution was the room-sized had originated in his familys Brussels
him to see if Broodthaers Un Jardin dHiver (A winter garden), apartment as the Muse dArt Moderne,
would be interested in a featuring nineteenth century en- Dpartement des Aigles. Then, in 1974,
1976 project show at the gravings of animals, photographic Broodthaers received the Prix Robert
museum. Broodthaers enlargements of the same prints, palm Giron, named after the Palais des
replied, probably in trees, garden chairs, a ceremonial red Beaux-Arts former director of exhibi-
jest, and in reference carpet and a closed-circuit television tions. The prize came with funding for
to the United States camera and monitor that broadcast the a catalogue and a large solo exhibition,
Bicentennial, Im not visitors in real time. One day dur- which included a piece similar to Un
taking part in their ing the run of the show, Broodthaers Jardin dHiver (a projection of his camel
celebration! Interview borrowed a camel from the Antwerp film replaced the closed-circuit televi-
with Barry Barker, Zoo and filmed it entering the hall. sion). In quick succession, Broodthaers
London, 18 May 2009. Walking with the animal, Broodthaers received exhibition invitations from
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 39

,wx ~
~ Ul. c d .....
' 7~.
r~. oeii.
~-~.t~ ~

amtP .~
ga./R.Iti
maJWte ~
1fJ$
r~ :i:l:l
toiLe
eaJ.L Cilhl.
'l.i.

~ ~~~

c~

~
ga./.2lri. e
~-----
~
40 Studies Cathleen Chaffee

5Karl Ruhrberg Basels Kunstmuseum, Berlins Neue Since 1974, Broodthaers had used the
ber M.B., Magazin Nationalgalerie, Londons Institute term dcor to describe his room-
Kunst, Vol. 15/2 (1975): of Contemporary Art, the Oxford sized installations. By 1975, he was also
75. Translation Susanna Museum of Modern Art and the Centre using it in reference to solo exhibitions
Rudofsky. Nationale dArt Contemporain in Paris. such as those in Brussels, Basel and
There was also talk of an exhibition Paris. Both his autonomous settings
6This was the question at the Museum of Modern Art in New and his late solo exhibitions are thus
posed in the recent York. With the notable exception of an usually called Dcors, a much less co-
volume edited by Paula invitation from Amsterdams Stedelijk hesive artists project than the better-
Marincola: What makes Museum, this exhibition circuit could known Muse dArt Moderne, Dpar-
a great exhibition? be considered the laurel wreath for a tement des Aigles. As the exhibition
(Philadelphia, PA: 1970s European artist. has increasingly become the medium
Philadelphia Exhibitions through which contemporary art ar-
Initiative, Philadelphia Such institutional interest in Brood- rives in the field of vision, the question
Center for Arts and thaerss work came after the artists What makes a great exhibition? has
Heritage; Chicago, IL, health had already begun to deteriorate. prompted an efflorescence of research
2006). Damaged by illness in his teens, his on historic shows, often focusing on
liver was now failing from cirrhosis, innovations like site-specific instal-
7Marcel Broodthaers, which prognosis was considered fatal. lations and artists interventions in
LAnglus de Daumier Broodthaers nonetheless prolonged public collections. To date, research
(Paris: Centre national his life a few years through surgical on the Dcors has, however, remained
dart contemporain, treatments and a highly restricted diet. limitedcomplicated, perhaps, by
1975). Translation Although often exhausted, he chose several factors. The experience visi-
Cathleen Chaffee. not to rest, and instead accepted the tors had in a multi-room exhibition
invitations that began arriving. At no would be impossible to access through
8Interview with Salim point does it seem that Broodthaers documentary photographs even if
Sasson, RTB, 1968. considered a traditional victory lap, the there were not significant lacunae in
Translation Cathleen traveling showcase of past work typical the photographic record. Furthermore,
Chaffee. of artists invited for successive retro- Broodthaerss use of the term dcor
spectives. Instead, he worked tirelessly to describe both room-sized installa-
9LAnglus de Daumier on the exhibition details with curators tions and retrospective exhibitions can
took place from 2 at the museums in question and his be confusing. Finally, the monikers
October 10 November, wife, Maria Gilissen, who helped ex- ambiguitywith its either practi-
1975. ecute his plans. He selected older works cal or linguistic associations with
and added new ones to create unique theater, film, interior decoration and
10For an extensive installations for each institution. Karl decorumhas generally obscured the
analysis of this work, Ruhrberg, who worked with him on the shows significance. Any attempt to
see Philippe Cuenat, Berlin exhibition, Invitation pour une situate the Dcors in spite of these com-
Loeuvre graphique exposition bourgeoise (25 February6 plications is driven by the knowledge
dans le dcor: lentre April 1975), said that each of the late that Broodthaerss exhibitions form the
de lexposition, in exhibitions looked so different because core of his continuing relevance to cu-
Marcel Broodthaers: Broodthaers refused to repeat himself, rators and artists alike. The exhibitions
uvre Graphique: noting that these scruples, this anxiety were Broodthaerss endeavor to create
Essais (Genve: Centre about repetition do not exactly make an appropriate setting for his own
genevois de gravure collaboration with Marcel Broodthaers retrospective, and they cast his oeuvre
contemporaine, 1991) 64- easy. One has to be ready to make it just in a trans-historical framework. They
80. The exhibition loge as difficult for oneself as he does, if the present the most poetic articulation of
du Sujet took place from work is to succeed. In essence, when two questions that lie at the heart of
5 October 3 November, Broodthaers retired as director of his exhibition practice: how does exhibit-
1974. peripatetic museum in 1972, he tackled ing a work change it, and how does the
the position of curator. knowledge of its history change us?
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 41

Dcor as (Non) of theater, at least from the point 11From an undated


Environment of view of the basic concept, even (late 1975) interview
The introduction of a discrete room- if it is not very practicable. Which fragment in the archives
sized installation in Broodthaerss is to say, restore to the object to its of Andr Balthazar
work hardly originated with Un Jardin real function and not transform an entitled Apprenticeship
dHiver. Indeed, the packing crates and object into a work of art. To put it & Filiation, included
fine art postcards that made up the first roughly, because Duchamp in the on the CD Avant-Garde
incarnation of his Muse dArt Moderne, end transformed a lot of his objects, in Belgium 1917-1978,
Dpartement des Aigles in 1968 surely you know. Vol. 3 (Sub Rosa, 2009).
set this precedent. Broodthaers wrote Translation Cathleen
that the function of the object as an If Broodthaers insisted that the first Chaffee
object of decoration is already found in section of his museum was not trans-
the first version of the Museum. That formed into a static work of art because 12Dcor: A Conquest
Museum, however, was temporary and the objects were eventually used again by Marcel Broodthaers
site-specific. Broodthaers stressed that as museum crates, here he insisted that took place at the Institute
the crates would not become artworks the Dcors would not be transmuted of Contemporary Art,
because they would not participate in because he assigned them another use. London from 11 June6
the market; they were borrowed from As he had done with his first Un Jardin July 1975.
a shipping company and would be dHiver, Broodthaers used his London
returned. The autonomous Dcors, on exhibitiona two-room installa- 13In an interview with
the other hand, could be sold as instal- tion of borrowed and rented objects Marianne Verstraeten
lations. These included Broodthaerss entitled Dcor: A Conquest by Marcel during the exhibition
loge du Sujet, the titular work from Broodthaersas the set for a film, Carl Andre, Marcel
his Basel exhibition, Salle Outremer and The Battle of Waterloo. At the vernis- Broodthaers, Daniel
Salle Blanche from his Paris exhibition sage for the exhibition containing the Buren, Victor Burgin,
entitled LAnglus de Daumier, the two first Un Jardin dHiver, the room was Gilbert & George, On
versions of Un Jardin dHiver from Brus- filled with mingling visitors who piled Kawara, Richard Long,
sels and LEntre de lExposition, from cocktail glasses on the garden chairs. Gerhard Richter,
Basel, in which a number of editions He told a journalist that the crowds Brussels, Palais des
and photographs of past works adorned were attracted to the piece not because Beaux-Arts. 9 January3
a palm court. Salle Verte, Broodthaerss of its beauty, but because it furnished a February 1974. Published
last iteration of Un Jardin dHiver was social space, a place to sit down. His use in Anna Hakkens (ed.)
installed in Paris, and included Pupitre of the word dcor was thus correct; the Marcel Broodthaers
Musique (1964), a red-painted music works scenographic function could par lui-mme (Ghent,
stand covered in mussel shells. While operate equally as well for a film set or Belgium: Ludion, 1999)
alluding to the melodies that tradition- a decorated gathering place. 108110. Trans. Chaffee
ally accompanied social gatherings in a
winter garden, this early sculpture also The term dcor also complicated 14For example, Harald
linked it to the surrounding retrospec- comparisons between Broodthaerss Szeemann curated 12
tive exhibition. work and that of his contemporaries. Environments at the
Installation was not yet common in Kunsthalle, Bern in 1968,
In the case of these and other room- mid-1970s parlance, and a room-sized and the following year
sized artworks, Broodthaers seemed work was usually called an envi- Jennifer Licht organized
to use the term dcor for at least two ronment. As introduced by Allan Spaces at the Museum of
reasons. First, it described an artwork Kaprow, the expression environ- Modern Art, New York.
endowed with a function. As Brood- ment described a work that endeav- On the evolution of the
thaers stated in 1975: ored to break down barriers between terms installation
art and life, a cathartic promise that and environment,
It would normally be used to do Broodthaers would have had trouble see Julie H. Reiss, From
something else, to make a movie, identifying with, and a term he assidu- Margin to Center: the
to eventually be used for a piece ously avoided. The other common use Spaces of Installation
42 Studies Cathleen Chaffee

Art (Cambridge, Mass.: of environment in the 1970s was, Spiral Jetty (1970), in which the control
MIT Press, 1999) of course, by environmental or land and sculptural manipulation of nature
xii. Daniel Buren is artists who often traveled far afield exist alongside a particularly 1970s
usually considered to transform untouched, or extreme, exoticism: interstitial non-sites, seem-
to have coined the locations into artworks. Unlike these ingly outside the march of history.
term installation in projects, Broodthaerss Un Jardin Instead, Broodthaerss work took place
1971 as a replacement dHiver cultivated a historically-spe- within the institutional context, and
for exhibition, not cific iteration of outmoded bourgeois the artist resisted interpretations that
environment. See his leisure, designed to illustrate a kind of his projectsfor example, the camels
The Function of the Colonial-era control over nature and a entry into the Palais des Beaux-Arts
Studio, (trans. Thomas taste for the exotic, all while using en- challenged the divide between art and
Repensek) in October 10 vironmental elementspalm trees life. When a critic tried to praise him
(Fall 1979): 5158. that were also exceedingly common in for using the slow animal as a perfor-
1970s bourgeois interiors and waiting mance to critique the museums stasis,
15See Allan Kaprow, rooms. The Jardin dHiver seems to Broodthaers insisted that the camel
Notes on the Creation invert works like Robert Smithsons served only to make a film in the con-
of a Total Art in Allan
Kaprow, An
Exhibition (New York:
Hansa Gallery, 1958). In
1975 Broodthaers quoted
Andr Bretons Second
Manifesto of Surrealism
(1930): There exists
a state of mind where
life and death, the real
and the imaginary, the
past and the future,
the communicable and
the incommunicable,
high and low, no longer
seem contradictory.
Rejecting this position,
with its similarities to
Kaprows, he declared,
I hope I have nothing in
common with that state
of mind. op. cit. Lebeer:
43.

16The trope of the


palm in 1970s decoration
was noted by Michael
Oppitz in Rubens et le
Jardin dHiver, in op
cit. Marcel Broodthaers:
Catalogue - Catalogus
(Brussels: Socit des
expositions du Palais des
Beaux-Arts, 1974).
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 43

ventional sense; for him, the camels nineteenth century painter Antoine 17Interview by Jean-
arrival was functional, not performa- Wiertzs enormous mythological Pierre Van Tieghem, with
tive. Broodthaerss events and projects canvases. discussion by Benjamin
were more theatrical than spectacular, Buchloh, David Lamelas,
and replete with historical traces. He The day after the catalogue for Brood- and Michael Oppitz.
collected and exhibited nineteenth thaerss Brussels retrospective at the Rush de lmission Prix
century abcdaires, primers and en- Palais des Beaux-Arts was released, he Robert Giron 1974. RTB,
gravings. His preferred natural history requested a paper band be added, dedi- 27 September 1974.
and ethnographic museums were those cating the book to Wiertz. Broodthaers Recording located in
not yet cleansed of early collectors and said this was an acknowledgement that the Muses royaux
explorers mistakes. His favorite art he, like Wiertz, suffered from megalo- des Beaux-Arts de
museums included Antwerps Royal mania, as well as a protest against plans Belgique, Archives de
Museum, which only installed electric to demolish the unpopular government- lArt contemporain
lighting in recent memory, and the built and government-funded museum, en Belgique, 111.885.
unfashionable Muse Wiertz in Brus- full of Wiertzs melodramatic paintings, Translation Cathleen
sels, a studio museum built to house which had long since become an em- Chaffee. Broodthaerss
barrassment to the art establishment. protest may also be
Broodthaers used the platform of his considered in light of
exhibition to try to ensure the preserva- Joseph Beuyss recent
tion of this and other records of artistic hyper-theatrical
egotism nourished by temperamental purgation of American
critical tastes. He declared, I dont traumas. Beuyss I Like
much like clambering on the horse America and America
to defend the quality of lifeits too Likes Me, a three-day-
much of a right wing demandbut as long communication
an artist I am especially forced to do with a live coyote, had
so and address the contradictions that taken place just a few
exist in the bourgeoisie. It is impossible months earlier in May
to defend culture, and at the same time 1974. Broodthaerss
on another side allow that we destroy insistence in this
its traces. That these traces remained interview that he did
intact at frozen-in-time museums such not exhibit animals as
as Wiertzs or the Muse des Sciences artworks may seem
naturelles in Brussels, whose elabo- contradictory: another
rate nineteenth century dioramas and work from earlier in 1974,
overstocked vitrines went essentially Ne dites pas que je ne lai
unchanged until the 1970s, was part of pas ditLe Perroquet
what attracted Broodthaers to them. At (Dont say I didnt
the time when the Wiertz Museum was say sothe parrot),
in danger of destruction, the Muse des comprised a live parrot
Sciences naturelles just across the street in an antique cage, palm
was being threatened with extensive trees and a recording
renovations, a move Broodthaers also of Broodthaers reading
opposed. Designed to protect histori- one of his early poems,
cal objects and serve as a pedagogical Ma Rhtorique, which
resource, museums also became the contains the works title
place where updating, streamlining phrase. This grouping
and institutional progress ensured that was conceived of by
objects removed from past displays are Broodthaers as a dcor
often metaphorically wiped clean. This for the presentation
sleight of hand, which allows museums of the exhibitions
44 Studies Cathleen Chaffee

catalogue, Moules, Oeufs, to present themselves as reborn each History in art and literature, and
Frites, Pots, Charbon, time they are renovated, also consti- maybe others too, started as a road
Perroquets. tutes the obliteration of the remnants that turns backwards. In 10 years we
of former modes of viewing, often ef- will not be in 1980, but 1930 I think
18On the use of fectively hiding how the institution had we are no longer capable of invent-
historical referents used the objects in the past to construct ing things. People like Wiertz, like
in Broodthaerss a narrative, an argument or a vision of Courbet, like Ingres invented a new
work, see Philippe the world. form of expression in relation to
Cuenat, Figures: un their epoch, and I think that now we
dcor, in Broodthaers, Just as Broodthaers had labeled all the do nothing but apply what exists.
Confrences & colloques eagles in his Dsseldorf exhibition
(Paris: Galerie Nationale with the phrase This is not a work This is remarkable not only for its deep
du Jeu de Paume, 1992) of art, he succinctly, and ironically, skepticism of innovation, but also for
7195, and his Autour categorized his room-sized installa- its diachroneity, the suggestion that
De La Lorelei (Genve: tions as non-art by associating them on this road that turns backwards
Mamco, 1997). Cuenats with a function, a clearly anti-Mod-
research in these texts ernist position. As Philip Cuenat has
on the Basel Dcor noted, In using the terms dcor and
exhibition, loge function, Marcel Broodthaers surely
du Sujet, brilliantly knew that these referred to a conflicted
illustrates the rich and controversial heritage, which
significance Broodthaers saw functionalist reason objectify the
embedded in even a small notion of the dcor and reduce it to a
grouping of vitrines. suspect periphery where it connotes
superfluity and compulsivity, in a
19Broodthaers reprised wordkitsch. The architecturally
this argument in a short contingent quality of many environ-
text, Wiertz Museum. ments connected them to interior
Muse Wiertz, Studio decorationa fact Broodthaers did not
International, London, necessarily criticize. From Malevich to
vol. 188, no. 970 (October Van Doesburg, avant-garde artists have
1974): 114. He also widened their reach by using art as
planned an (unrealized) architectural decoration, or dcor, and
artists book about the Broodthaerss use of the term acknowl-
Museum. Interview with edged the pre-Modernist pedigree be-
Yves Gevaert, 19 March hind such seemingly original devices
2009. as site-specific installation. Paradoxi-
cally, in deploying a theatrical function
20Op cit., Van Tieghem Broodthaers essentially declared that
interview, September the works would, in effect, resist ob-
1974. jecthood. In the early 1970s, Brood-
thaerss reference to arts function as a
21Interview with Maria film or theater set was thus as much a
Gilissen, 22 October, criticism of the fickle critical fashions
2009. of his time as was his declaration of
support for the Wiertz museum.
22Op cit. Cuenat, 1992:
71. Translation Cathleen In an often-quoted 1969 statement,
Chaffee. Broodthaers proclaimed the nineteenth
century generally more interesting
than the twentieth, positing that:
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 45

we might re-join a past where real value, and also replaced the modish 23See Michael Fried,
advances took place. Broodthaers term environment. In relation to Art and Objecthood,
began making works about chronol- his solo exhibitions, the term dcor Artforum 5 (June 1967):
ogy within a few years of becoming a may have functioned at least on one 12-33. Reprinted in Fried,
visual artist, and the retrospective as level to distance his shows from the Art and Objecthood
an exhibition-type preoccupied him. teleology of retrospective exhibitions, (Chicago: The University
As in his comments on the Wiertz Mu- which originated with the 1855 Paris of Chicago Press, 1998).
seum, Broodthaers here shows himself Universal Exposition and the merging
doubtful that liberation from the past of Romantic individualism with the 24Op cit. Sasson
can lead to anything new. Second Empires emphasis on progress. interview, 1968.
In the nineteenth century it seemed, as
Dcor as (Non) Patricia Mainardi has argued, per- 25In terms of
Retrospective fectly natural that artists too should be exhibitions, these
Dcor, then, referred to installations required to show that their develop- include the survey Court-
with at least a theoretical functional ment followed the same immutable laws Circuit at the Palais des
Beaux-Arts, 1325 April,
1967; Broodthaerss
aforementioned reprise
of a 1966 Wide White
Space exhibition
catalogue in 1974, Ne
dites pas que je ne lai
pas ditLe Perroquet;
and his exhibition
Retrospective 10-63
3-73 at Art & Project
Gallery. Broodthaers
made a retrospective
of his filmic themes,
Rendez-vous mit Jacques
Offenbach (1972) and a
number of retrospective
wall panels comprised
of photographs of past
exhibitions, films, and
other works, including
Ma Collection (1971) and
Panneau A (1975).

26See Patricia
Mainardi, Art and
Politics of the Second
Empire: The Universal
Expositions of 1855 and
1867 (Yale University
Press: New Haven
and London, 1987) 65.
Mainardi details how in
1855, four artists (Ingres,
Delacroix, Decamps
and Vernet) deemed
46 wat wie

most representative as industry, their latest productions sometimes performed the installations,
of the patrimony were indubitably superior to the preceding planned ancillary film programs and
heavily courted, and ones. In traditional retrospectives, the designed, edited and wrote texts for
promised an opportunity artist saw his works dissevered from each of the exhibitions catalogues,
to show their evolution a larger context and transformed into which became veritable artists books.
in special retrospective illustrations of a dialectic evolution. The final presentations of Brood-
exhibitions. Courbets Broodthaers, on the other hand, wrote thaerss exhibitions were invariably
impression that that in his last exhibition, I attempted more ambitious than the original
organizers had slighted to articulate different objects and paint- proposals. The Brussels catalogue,
him famously led the ings realized at various dates between for example, tripled in size before it
artist to organize his 1964 and this year to form rooms in a was completed, and the floor plan for
own retrospective across spirit of dcor. That is to say, to restore Basel had to be expanded as the artist
from the Exposition. to the object or painting a real function. absorbed a neighboring gallery. Even
The dcor is not an end in itself. In his in exhibitions that contained mostly
27As Donald Preziosi retrospectives, numerous small rooms new works, Broodthaers also borrowed
and Claire Farago have were staged as dcors in the sense works that had already been sold to
argued that in terms that they were autonomous, set-like or collectors and institutionsthe mo-
of museum display, thematic groupings of work. The other ment an artist traditionally ceases to
[c]hronology is a galleries were artist-organized instal- have any controland opened them up
powerful and seductive lations with syntagmatically-ordered to new interpretations. Generally, the
rhetorical apparatus, groupings that introduced pathways exhibitions objects went unlabeled,
a fictive construct (a for new interpretations, and a mise- a departure from traditional practice
narrative of events) that en-scne that was nothing less than that could chronologically unmoor
masks ideology under Broodthaerss unique poetics of display. them. As one critic commented,
the guise of natural When an interviewer asked if there was Such deviations from the normal art
time. In Preziosi and not some confusion in Broodthaerss exhibition are noticeable. Its not about
Farago (eds.) Grasping approach, inasmuch as the 1974 Brussels neglect or a humorous intention, but
the World: The Idea of the exhibition combined very recent works about the whole, the system of an artist
Museum (Burlington, VT: with many of the characteristics of a who loves to work in the details.
Ashgate, 2004) 14. retrospective, Broodthaers replied,
Some early works appeared in more
28Marcel Broodthaers, I think what these old pieces have than one exhibition, while others were
LAnglus de Daumier that is recent, its the way to present shown a single time or in the form
(Centre national dart them. It was not possible ten years of photographs either framed on the
contemporain: Paris, ago, when the first pieces date wall or included in vitrines. In an era
1975). fromto change the presentation increasingly dominated by the white
as in this exhibition. So its the cube, Broodthaers showed a mastery
29Op cit., Van Tieghem presentation that forms the actual of these outmoded display cases, used
interview, September subject of this exhibition, and to protect objects when museum-going
1974. that brings it, I hope, the retrospec- became a more popular middle-class
tive character it might have. leisure activity around the turn of the
30Laszlo Glozer, century. At times, his cases echoed tra-
Photographieren When Broodthaers first began making ditional exhibition tropes: connecting
verboten: Marcel objects, it was not always possible for elements thematically, chronologically
Broodthaers in der him to select the works for an institu- or by a shared medium. Vitrines also
Nationalgalerie Berlin, tional setting or to control the means of stage the objects within them, creating
Sddeustche Zeitung (2 their display. Now, at the end of his life, relationships through proximity in
April 1975). Translation thanks to his renown and institutions miniature display environments that
Birgit Rathsmann. growing familiarity with site-specific echo the spirit of room-sized dcors,
installation, he selected the loans, similar, according to one admiring
dictated the floor-plans, oversaw and Berlin reviewer, to a proudly pre-
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 47

sented eccentric private collection of a stead of building a museum to control 31Heinz Ohff, Marcel
fundamental aesthete. it in perpetuity. The curator of the D- Broodthaers: Neue
cors seems to share with the collector Nationalgalerie Berlin
Uniting Broodthaerss late exhibitions of Walter Benjamins Unpacking My (28.2.-6.4.75), Das
is their alternation between the two Library an understanding that even Kunstwerk vol. 3 - XXVIII
dominant orders of display common though public collections may be less (May 1975). Trans. Birgit
to historic museums, as described by objectionable socially and more useful Rathsmann.
Stephen Bann: Passages and rooms academically than private collections,
devoted to the metonymic sequence the objects get their due only in the 32See Stephen
of schools and centuries are inter- latter. The personal, almost domestic Bann, The Clothing
rupted by reconstructed rooms, of- aspect of certain Dcors is a reminder of Clio: A Study of the
fering the synecdochic treat of a salon of the displays that precede artworks Representation of History
transported from the Ile Saint-Louis, reception in museumsthose installa- in Nineteenth-Century
or a dining-room from a departed tions created by the amateur connois- Britain and France
Jacobean manor-house. The period seur: the private collector. (Cambridge, New York:
room preserves arts erstwhile func- Cambridge University
tion as decoration for an individuals The object included in a Dcor exhibi- Press, 1984) 81.
home or office, and does so within the tion is presented as a not-yet-assimilat-
overarching rationalist museum that ed, moveable and potentially decorative 33Walter Benjamin,
otherwise orders objects historically, object, underlining the contingency Unpacking My Library,
or according to typology, peeling away of meaning in relation to display, and in Illuminations (New
traces of previous installations and prefiguring the uses history makes of York: Schocken Books,
earlier displays. These two modes artworks after the artists death, when 1968) 67.
one temporal, one experientialrun tastes, politics and positions change,
like an alternating current throughout and identical works are illustrated as 34This was one of the
the Dcors. By switching between the proof for different, even contradic- messages conveyed in
synecdochic and the metonymic, the tory critical arguments. Broodthaerss designs
retrospective and the theatrical set, for the publication
the Dcors illuminate how museums Catalogue - Catalogus.
construct the past, and thus how they He selected a number of
structure modern viewing. images of his work that
he then instructed the
The exhibitions could also be com- exhibitions curator, Yves
pared to the museums of Antoine Gevaert, to distribute
Wiertz or Gustav Moreau, which were and repeat throughout
planned by the artists in an attempt the catalogue. Interview
to secure one place where artworks with Yves Gevaert, 19
are not interchangeable, where future March 2009. This so-
visitors will see the work how the artist called system disjoints
wished it to be seen. Like these muse- readers expectations. At
ums, the Broodthaers-organized retro- first, the works appear to
spectives permanently complicated fu- illustrate or support the
ture display. Curators inevitably must essayists texts, but as
decide how to show objects that were they repeat, the capacity
re-exhibited by the artist at the end of an image of an
of his life in a seemingly meaningful artwork to illustrate an
relationship to other works. One option argument is increasingly
is to preserve, wherever possible, these undermined.
displays or to re-create them. But it is
useful to note that Broodthaers curated
a retrospective vision of his work, in-
48 Studies RoseLee Goldberg

NOTES I use the word space in two


specific senses; one, as an interest
1Originally published or subject matter of the workand, two
in Studio International the space as a condition for the
190 no. 977 (September/ awareness of the work by space
October 1975): 130-135. I refer to the lack of space
In this text, Goldberg (Robert Barry).
considers new artistic
practices from the 1970s,
such as conceptual art,

Space as Praxis
body art, land art and
performance art, with 1

regard to a major shift in


their relation to (gallery)
space. The notion and use
of space by the artists
from this generation
can be regarded as
the beginnings of the
management of space as Maybe we are just dealing
a curatorial meansa with a space that is different
means that is prevalent from the space that one
in todays cultural experiences when confronting
industries. a traditional object
(Robert Barry)

1The publication A This article takes as its starting point prime sensation that we all experience.
Space: A Thousand Words the exhibition-publication A Space: In architecture, recent discussions
is an exact reproduction A Thousand Words held at the Royal were using as critical reference social,
of the exhibition, College of Art Gallery, London in politico-economic and semiological
including introductory February 1975. The exhibition com- yardsticks. Space, after all an inherent
texts by the organizers, prised the work of thirty contributors architectural principle, had however
RoseLee Goldberg and on the production of space. Those been reduced to a product of such dis-
Bernard Tschumi. participating could courses. Yet attempts
professionally be Anything that exists has a certain were being made to
2Quoted in Lucy categorized as artists, space around it; even an idea exists question the nature
Lippards book Six Years: architects, musicians within a certain space of space itself, and
The Dematerialization and film-makers, but (Lawrence Weiner) we wished to make
of the Art Object from the intentions of the this work public. In
1966 to 1972 (Berkeley: exhibition were to go beyond these art, the lengthy debate on conceptual
University of California categories and bring together different art seldom included specific reference
Press, 1997) 127. The sensibilities and preoccupations, not to the perception of space. A sympo-
broadcast took place in in order to create false relationships sium held on radio network WBAI-FM
November 1969, with between them, but to hold the ideas up New York in 1969, moderated by Seth
Lawrence Weiner, Robert to one another, as from a distance. Siegelaub and entitled Art Without
Barry, Douglas Huebler Space became the common denomi- Space, began with the proposition
and Joseph Kosuth. nator after careful consideration of by Siegelaub that they would discuss
how this concept is felt, not just in the nature of the art whose primary
professional circles but as an obvious existence in the world does not relate
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 49

I dont understand how you can think that


something that is a fact of life is not germane
You may not consider space an art material,
but the fact that you are occupying a certain
amount of space in a pure physical sense
means that you are dealing with space
whether you want to or not
(Lawrence Weiner).

We all make objects that dont have


any space around them except the
personal experience of space...
Music is a very spatial experience.
I think we can experience space in a
less physical way and thats the kind
of space Im talking about
(Robert Barry).

to space, not to its exhibition in space, considered in architecture. Rather [] 3Henry Flynt Jr.,
not to its imposing things on the walls. I have sought to discuss the particular Concept Art, printed
None of the artists agreed. notion of Space as Praxis as learnt in La Monte Young (ed.),
from various activities of artists and An Anthology, (Mnchen:
The discussion developed many performers working in what has come Heiner Friedrich 1961,
themes, but mainly it confirmed that to be considered a conceptual art 1963).
space is always inherent in art. Indeed, framework. Hopefully those architects
music, dance, gallery space, an exhibi- reading this piece will select for them- 4John Cage, The
tion on space of two-dimensional selves the relevant comparisons. Musical Object quoted
propositions about space, increased in P. Carpenter, Current
the complexity of the subject. The Musicology.
response by contributors, and sub-
sequent discussion of the exhibition, 5Yvonne Rainer,
has led me to further investigate this interview in Avalanche
notion. The following text, which does (Summer 1972): 50.
not refer to the exhibition, attempts to
consider the way that our perception 6Kurt Lewin,
of space is challenged and altered. The Principles of Topological
references are to recent work of se- Psychology (New York:
lected artists only, and not to architec- Magraw-Hill, 1936).
ture. For such a comparative exercise Lewin mentions three
would necessitate a lengthy analysis kinds of interaction
of the ways in which space has been between regions. The
50 Studies RoseLee Goldberg

first is locomotion, the Theory and Praxis relocate the categories into either the-
second communication, Although the notions of theory and atre, music auditorium or art gallery.
in which a part of region practice have co-existed over the For instance, the beginnings of an idea
A extends to region centuries, fluctuating in importance, could sometimes be found in a John
B so that theres an sometimes dialectically opposed, Cage piece, before it moved to other
overlap, and the third is sometimes both considered to be as media; alternatively its origins could
a powerfield, in which a general as one another, sometimes both be found in the more formal enclaves
circle or oval develops equally indispensable for any activity, of minimal sculpture, which was then
from region A to cover it was in a certain Anglo-Saxon frame- transformed by some dancers into per-
region B. The powerfield work that these two acquired delicate formance work. In other words, there
would be the most moral overtones. Theory pertained seems to have been a general consensus
inclusive. to Apollo, the god of intellect, while of sensibility, which links that work,
practice was symbolized by the wild which is now considered conceptual,
7Vito Acconci, festivities of Dionysus. to performance art. This merging of
interview, in Avalanche related ideas allows performance to
(Fall 1972): 72. For someone like Oskar Schlemmer, be considered the practice of much
working as painter and theatre direc- theoretical and analytical work.
8Ibid, 76. tor at the Bauhaus during the 1920s,
theory and practice reflected a puritan Performance space
9Willoughby Sharp, ethic. Schlemmer considered painting and materialization
Body Works, in and drawing to be that aspect of his of concepts
Avalanche no I (Fall work, which was most rigorously intel- But if we think of the ways in which
1970): 15. lectual, while the unadulterated plea- much conceptual art and performance
sure he obtained from his experiments work are presented, it is clear that
10Carl Andre, in theatre was, he wrote in his diary, performance implies a different kind,
interview, in Avalanche constantly suspect for this reason. The i.e. quantity of space for its execution.
no I (Fall 1970): 24. essential investigation of his paintings, Space becomes the medium for prac-
as in his theatrical experiments, was tice and actual experience. Put simply
11Bruce Nauman, that of space: his paintings delineated then, theory, whether concepts,
interview, in Avalanche the visual and two-dimensional ele- drawing or documentation
(Winter 1971): 24. ments of space, while theatre provided remains essentially two-dimensional,
a place in which to experience space. while practice/performance implies
12Moholy-Nagy Although beset with doubts as to the a physical context, a space in which
discussed the effect of specificity of the two media, theatre to experience the materialization of
body mechanism in his and painting, Schlemmer considered that theory. In this way, recent art is
essay Theatre Circus, them as complementary activities: to be looked at not only as the dema-
Variety: The effective in his writings he clearly describes terialization of the art object as it has
of the body mechanism painting as theoretical research, while been described by Lucy Lippard, but
arises essentially performance was the practice of that inversely as the materialization of the
from the spectators classical equation. art concept.
astonishment or shock
at the potentialities of Schlemmers circumstances become Considering that concept art is first
his own organism as an interesting pointer to present of all an art of which the material is
demonstrated to him by preoccupations in art, if one considers concepts, the materialization of these
others. Lszl Moholy- particularly recent events in New York. concepts beyond the realm of the mind
Nagy, Oskar Schlemmer For the first time since the Bauhaus and has allowed for the inclusion of greatly
and Farkas Molnar (eds.), the 1920s, there has been a coming- varied art works, separately and
Die Bhne im Bauhaus together of dancers, musicians and conveniently named body art, land art,
[1925] (Mainz: Florian artists; and the resulting cross-fertil- performance art, and so on. Although
Kupferberg, 1965) 45. ization of concepts and sensibilities the form of each of these works and the
makes it difficult for those wishing to medium used may differ considerably,
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 51

the relationship between the intentions insistence within these four possibili- 13Simone Forti,
of the various artists is often quite an ties on the experience of time, material Handbook in Motion
intimate one. What really alters the and space rather than on a representa- (Halifax: Nova Scotia
perception of the respective pieces is tion in formal terms. College of Art Press,
the means and places chosen for their 1947) 31.
execution. If we construct a familiar So while some conceptual artists
example to illustrate this, we can see were refuting the art object, others saw 14Oskar Schlemer
how intentions and preoccupations the experience of space and of their discussed this in detail in
interact with means and places. Let us body as providing the most immediate his essay Mathematics
consider the following instructions: and existentially real alternative. Much of the Dance, 1926: If
of conceptual art, when presented as one were to imagine
Take a book and lie for three hours either land, body or performance space filled with a soft,
in the sun, using the book to cover art, implied indirectly or directly a pliable substance in
your bare chest. particular attitude to and investiga- which the figures of
tion of the experience of space. This the sequence of the
This statement may be produced in a experience may seem to have little to dancers movement
book or framed and hung in a gal- do with the intentions or the mean- were to harden as a
lery. In this form it would be typical ing of a piece, but from the viewers negative form this
of many conceptual art instructions, standpoint the experience of the piece would demonstrate
where the execution or non-execution sets up a new set of responses to the the relationship of the
of the piece is irrelevant. The idea perception of space. Whereas earlier geometry of the plane to
stands alone and the action is per- representations of space in art have the stereometry of the
formed mentally. been discussed variously from the space.
These instructions may be executed simple planes of gothic paintings to
by an artist on a lonely beach accom- the disappearing perspectives of early 15Yvonne Rainer, in
panied only by a photographer who renaissance and renaissance art, or Avalanche (Summer
documents the skin burning around from the surfaces of cubist painting 1972): 50.
the book, in detailed colour photo- to the enormous space obstructions of
graphs. The photographs may then be minimal sculpture, much recent art 16Ibid.
exhibited in a gallery (with or without has insisted on the body as a direct
the original instructions), as a record measure of space. The relationship 17Interview with
of a live event. This would probably be between the viewer, the artist and the author, June 1975.
discussed in relation to body art. artwork then became an important
But it could also be presented as a piece one, since the viewer would have to put 17Grahams pieces are
of land art, if the indentations made by together the indeterminate elements particularly structures
the artists body in the land were re- of the space in order to fully perceive that allow for spectator
corded and this information presented the piece. space changes, whereas
in a gallery. Nauman and Acconcis
The piece could be differently con- This move from objective consider- works are more
structed by dancers, using their bodies ation of objects in the early 1960s, to directed to personalized
to suggest the feel of the action and so the mingling of experience, precepts projections of the artists
symbolically recall the bodys rela- and concepts generally conceded by private spacean
tionship to the terrain. This could be the conceptual movement became a implied relationship
performed in a gallery, and would be wave engulfing all kinds of creativity, between artist and
discussed under the general heading of not only those aspects of fine arts viewer.
performance art. where the anti-objectivity could be
most specifically seen. In music, too,
From this exercise we can deduce that space was the medium for less struc-
the attitudes of the various artists bear tured sound. John Cage referred to a
comparison while the actual works diffuse acoustical space. In recent
differ considerably. There is an overall years my musical ideas have contin-
52 Studies RoseLee Goldberg

ued to move away from the object (a spectator space (Graham), or even work
composition having a well-defined which was presented as a critique of
relationship of parts) into process the uses of public and private space
(nonstructured activities, indetermi- (Buren, Dimitrijevi).
nate in character). Performance also
reflected anti-object precepts. It moved Powerfields
away from manipulating the body or In his early works Vito Acconci used
sound as sculptural elements, as in the his body to provide an alternative
early works of Yvonne Rainer, Steve ground to the page ground he had
Paxton, Steve Reich, Trisha Brown and used as a poet. He described these
others, to less structured and explor- initial attempts as very much oriented
atory work. Yvonne Rainer said of her towards defining his body in space.
work that she wished to use a different
point of view about her body, so that it Rather than use the body as a narra-
could be handled like an object, picked tive element or in order to go beyond
up and carried, and so that objects the object, he was concerned with
and bodies could be interchangeable. describing an area, which he calls the
But to consider the body and object as powerfield. This notion, taken from
interchangeable inevitably empha- Kurt Lewins three-part principle
sized the body itself as the individual elaborated in The Principle of Topologi-
measure of space: as our first means of cal Psychology, assumed a circle or a
perceiving space. powerfield, which included all possible
interaction in physical space. In this
Space as Praxis sense his pieces were less concerned
This recent insistence on the body as a with locating his body in space, but
means of experiencing space leads to rather with implicating people in the
spatial notions very different from the space through their own, and his, ac-
ones we have come to know through tions. He did not wish the audience to
painting and sculpture. Rather than merely empathize with him, but was
simply delineating the limits of spaces, concerned with setting up a field in
space as praxis extends our percep- which the audience was, so that they
tion of space itself and body space. became a part of what I was doing
For it is in space that we experience they became part of the physical space
the effects of these art propositions. in which I move. In Seedbed, there-
For example, those artists who began fore, when Acconci masturbated under
with the premise of the artist-as-art a ramp built into a gallery over which
(Manzoni, Brus, Gilbert and George) passers-by walked, there occurred a
focused on their own persons, so curious interaction between him and
that the viewer could respond with a his audience. Because he was constant-
like body-awareness. But the private ly physically present (even though the
consciousness of the body, in these evidence of this was only through his
instances, had little to do with wider masturbating being audible) the audi-
spatial experience. ence was implicated in an act, which
would normally be performed more
Only subsequent works presented a privately, and which in public would
new sense of space, which I shall at- normally be considered distasteful.
tempt to describe under the following He relied on the footsteps of his po-
terms: constructed space and power- tential voyeurs to provide the fantasy
fields (Nauman, Acconci), natural space necessary to keep him at his task for
(Oppenheim), body space (Simone hours on end. Being underground,
Forti, Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer), the pun on seedbed created not only
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 53

an awareness of place for both him and the land demands an echo from the
the audience but also the implied sense artists body. His Reading Position for
of growth, which the title inferred. a Second Degree Burn (1970) illustrated
But the wish to create a powerfield these complementary sensibilities,
where the audience could experience while pointing also to a very differ-
a new perception of space and their ent kind of body art, less concerned
movement in itcould also be created with space or place, but with inflicting
by construction, through the use of marks and weals on the body as af-
model, rather than through direct firmation of a deeply personal physical
physical confrontation with the artists. consciousness of the body as matter.
There been this urge recently to find
an alternative to live performance, Constructed Space
because it seems that a powerfield can However this shift from object to
probably exist without my physical place was, ironically, finding its final
presence. One way that this can occur form as a photograph in a gallery. The
is if a space is designed, directly ori- photograph (the pornography of art,
ented for my potential use so that when according to Andre) reduced the em-
a person carne into the space he would phatic experiential quality of the work
still be involved in my presence this to a mere record of the experience.
interest hasnt been totally devoid of Documentation became the obverse of
an art context. Its always been how conceptual art. Initial anti-object mo-
to make an exhibition area viable to tives and direct experience criteria of
make those spatial concerns hard. such pieces were absorbed and muted
by the medium of documentation.
Natural Space
Dennis Oppenheim on the other hand The documented projects transmitted
used natural space (beach, mountain an idea of space by suggestion, projec-
side, ploughed field) to make direct tion or model only; the information
correlations between the body and the on space was acquired passively. But
space surrounding the body, rather the passive role of the viewer could be
than constructions or directly inter- changed to an active one if the experi-
personal performance as Acconci did. ence of the constructed space was the
experience of the piece. Unlike the
The body as place is a common condi- quasi-theatrical interventions of Ac-
tion of body works. Oppenheims 1969 conci, many of Bruce Naumans pieces
earth works extended Carl Andres relied on a more formal definition of
conception of sculpture as place to space. Specifically constructed envi-
the point where as he said a work is ronments were built so that a particu-
not put in a place, it is that place. This lar feeling of space was designed into
sentiment applies equally to Oppen- each work. In May 1970, five years after
heims body works. In several works his first body work at the University
his body is treated as place. Generally of California at Davis, Nauman made
the body as place acts as a ground a V-shaped corridor at San Jose State
which is marked in ways quite similar College. The two corridors were made
to those employed in earthworks. of specially sound-proofed material,
causing pressure changes in the cor-
In an interview with Willoughby ridors. When you were at the open
Sharp, Oppenheim emphasized that his end of the V there was not much effect.
concern for the body came from con- But as you walked into the V the pres-
stant physical contact with large bodies sure increased quite a bit. It was very
of land. He also said that working with claustrophobic. The corridors were two
54 Studies RoseLee Goldberg

feet wide at the beginning and nar- dance, which isolated body parts into
rowed down to about sixteen inches. appendages of arms, legs, head, and
The walls became closer and slowly then facial expression and symbolic
forced you to be aware of your body. It gestures. Rather they were concerned
could be a very self-conscious kind of with individually selecting something
experience. in the environment and observing its
movement, then abstracting an element
Nauman insisted that many of the from the observed movement that they
pieces were to do with creating a could take on with their own bodies.
strict environment so that even if the
performer didnt know anything about Kinaesthetic movement (sensing inter-
me or the work that went into the piece, nal body movement and the changing
he would still be able to do something dynamic configurations of the body)
similar to what I would have done. In was an important aspect of the work.
the piece described above, a mirror It could be explained by using the
threw the spectator back on himself, example of a juggler throwing balls in
dislocating his own image through the air. The skills of the juggler depend
unexpected confrontation in unfamil- on a balance between the body and its
iar places. Naumans comments were minute tensions, and a careful knowl-
important in that they outlined that the edge of the movement, thrust and fall
specific intentions of each piece was of the balls. The dancers perform with
to change the viewers perception of this same double-edged consciousness:
space. As in Coloured Light Corridor, first the internal movement of the body
presented at the Hayward Gallery in and then the ways in which the body
1971, or in pieces which combined the dislocates space.
distancing use of video television,
Nauman manipulated space in order Inevitably, each dancer introduced
to provide a means for us to recognize a particular personal perception of
how we perceive space, rather than body-space. Simone Forti often worked
what we perceive, while manipulating from certain experimental psychology
what he called the functional mecha- premises, allowing each movement to
nism of a person. have its own presence and meaning.
The Huddle, a dance construction re-
Body Space quiring six or seven people, attempted
Such active and passive experience to define mass using bodies in space. It
of ones body and space itself occurs started out looking like a rugby scrum,
when one attends the performance of then the mass began to move as one
artists such as Simone Forti, Trisha person detached himself and climbed
Brown or Deborah Hay. All three over the human lump, one foot on
performers bring to the gallery the someones thigh, a hand in the crook of
specific training of dancers (each someones neck, to the other side.
having passed through with varying
degrees of critical appraisal the work- Her reflection on space awareness
ing methods of dancers such as Merce not only stemmed from behavioural
Cunningham, Ann Halprin, Martha demonstrations but also from subtler
Graham or the Judson Group) so that works by musicians such as La Monte
their body language is concerned with Young or John Cage, which attempted
the dancers ability to articulate and to experience sound, space and move-
experience both the body itself and the ment simultaneously, with no distinc-
space in which it moves. They rejected tions between the work (music) and the
the formal articulation of conventional people who filled the space.
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 55

Body as Object ing over the top of a building. They


The outcome of these performances was proceeded to walk down the seven
also a means of rejecting the stylized stories of its vertical face, supported by
conventions of formalist art, in this case mountaineering equipment. Another
of Minimalism. Encouraged by the in- work, using the same mechanical
teraction in New York between dancers support, took place along one wall of a
and artists throughout the 1960s, many gallery at the Whitney: the performers
of the discussions that revolved around moved at right angles along the vertical
minimal sculpture were applied to the wall-face. The audience would virtu-
various works presented by the dancers. ally swing back on their chairs in an
attempt to view the dance sideways on,
While minimal sculpture introduced rather than from the top as they were
a new kind of physicality that came obliged to do, as though watching the
from the material, and not from in- action from a few floors above ground.
ternal psychological mechanisms, in So within one conventional gallery
dance the objecthood of Minimalism space, Trisha Brown forced a further
was paralleled by a notion of the body inversion of space perception by work-
as neutral object, outlining positions in ing against the laws of gravity.
space only. The dancers work became
more exploratory, developing the in- She then reversed the process by ex-
ternal (even existential) consciousness ecuting performances with six dancers
of the body in space. The non-expres- lying on the floor, going through vari-
sionistic aspect of minimal sculpture ous movement sequences. The audi-
took the form in dancing of non- ence stood around them and had to tip
theatricality: A refusal to project a slightly forward, heads bent, to gain an
persona, but thinking of oneself in overall view of the choreography on the
dancing as simply a neutral purveyor ground. Or they sat on the floor next to
of information. According to Yvonne the performers, thereby seeing differ-
Rainer, this tended to free dancers ent parts of the body, soles of feet, top
from the earlier dramatic and narcis- of head, side of torso or thighs. Articu-
sistic content of traditional dancing. lating the body on the floor eliminated
She wrote that her overall concern was problems of balance, tension and grav-
to weight the quality of the human ity pull, which occur when working
body toward that of objects, away from vertically in space, and also allowed for
the super-stylization of the dancer. quite different figurations.
Her later work, however, returned to
projecting persona (a more private Spectator Space
persona), or a kind of interior space But the integrity of each gesture,
which led away from the investigation which Trisha Brown has said is central
of space itself to more psychologically to her work, is something of which
and folklore-oriented work. we are seldom consciously aware in
ourselves. It is only through becoming
Gravity spectator to our own actions, either in
Trisha Brown on the other hand rarely a mirror, which reflects present time,
played on exteriorizing fantasy or or through video, which relays not only
making private emotions public and present, but also past gestures, that
general, but dealt with more direct experience is truly learned. In a recent
space experience, using existing build- piece, first shown at Projekt, Cologne,
ings as obstacles to be overpowered in summer 1974, and again at the Lisson
through physical effort. One piece Gallery, London, Dan Graham used both
consisted of performers appear- mirror and video to show each partici-
56 Studies RoseLee Goldberg

pant the accumulation of their own amined the level of self-consciousness,


movements. By using mirror and video, which could be projected by perform-
one reflecting the other, he incorpo- ers: In this piece a woman focuses
rated also a sense of future time. On consciousness only on a television
entering the cube one saw oneself first image of herself and must immediately
in the mirror and then, eight seconds verbalize the content of her conscious-
later, saw that mirrored action relayed ness. The man focuses consciousness
on the video. Present time was the view- only outside himself on the woman,
ers immediate action, which was then observing her objectively through the
picked up by the mirror and video in camera connected to the monitor
rotation. One saw not only what one had The spectator space in this and other
recently performed, but knew that what similar pieces is, according to Graham,
one would perform, would then become to do with social and perhaps even
on the video what one had just per- anthropological aspects of perfor-
formed. Thus the visitor had to adjust to mance. His more recent works however,
both present and past time, as well as to involving larger numbers of people,
an idea of future time. All future action, were structured so that the experience
the entrance of others into the struc- of space and time were added to the
ture, was anticipated as one waited to earlier more psychological pieces.
see how they would reappear in present For Graham, the particular interaction
time as recordings of past moments. between individuals, their action in
public and private space, and the con-
In this piece, Present Continuous Past, structed spaces made the pieces more
Graham explored the convention of architectural, in the sense that archi-
mirrors as reflecting present time: tecture implies these relationships.
Mirrors reflect instantaneous time
without duration and they totally Private and Public Space
divorce our exterior behaviour from The various works described above
our inside consciousnesswhereas were often intended to divert the
video feedback does just the opposite, conventional function of the gallery as
it relates the two in a kind of durational showing objects by using it as a place
time flow. to experience experience. Concept art
implied in its early stages, directly or
But Dan Grahams pieces (particularly indirectly, a critique not only of the ob-
the pre-Projekt work) could be studied ject but also the circle of art market, art
not only as an investigation of time and critic and art institutions, which sur-
space, but also as a theory of audience/ rounded it. By making so much of the
performer relationshipspectator work intangible it was hoped that these
space, as he calls it. In line with this operations could be short-circuited.
idea, the mechanics of many pieces Of course the gradual acceptance of
were built so that the audience was such work by this same circle, and its
at once the performer. This interest saleable objecthood in the form of text,
was based on Grahams involvement photograph and document, has never
with Bertolt Brecht and his theory of truly revolutionized the use of art in
audience-performer relationships. the existing culture. But the use of the
He concentrated on Brechts idea that gallery space itself has certainly be-
in order not to alienate audience and come more flexible. The space need not
performer, a self-consciousness and be merely a showcase for marketable
uncomfortable state should be imposed goods, but can at best be considered a
on the audience/performers. public area for certain experimental
Two Consciousness Projection (1973) ex- workshops and reciprocal experiences.
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 57

Although there are numerous other as in the 1920s, directly reflects spatial
works which could fit this discussion, preoccupations in the art world. But
one further aspect should be consid- unlike the 1920s, when the separa-
ered: that of artists like Daniel Buren tion between theory and practice (in a
and Braco Dimitrijevi, who have some- dialectical form or not) was absolute, it
times refuted the gallery space, and by is difficult to separate where con-
moving outside it have tended to act as ceptual art ends and performance
a critique of, and attempted to manipu- begins. For conceptual art contains the
late our perception of, public space. premise that the idea mayor may not be
executed. Sometimes it is theoretical
Burens striped canvases, unchanged or conceptual; sometimes it is material
in nine years, presented in a gallery and performed. So, too, with perfor-
or outside it, imply a rhetoric on the mance art. It even uses a conceptual
idea of public and private space. By op- language (photograph, diagram,
posing the two, inside and outside, the documentation) to communicate ideas.
gallery with its specialized audience So on the one hand, the language of
becomes a symbol of private, exclusive conceptual art has expanded that of
territory. While the stripes in public performance art to a point where the
space (metro, advertising billboards, medium of communication is very
sandwich men) force a new dimension similar. On the other hand, and in re-
on public space. Not by altering the verse, performance has altered the way
space as such, but rather by enforcing that conceptual artists were working.
the reality of each space. Whether, for instance, Nauman con-
sidered his early body work as dance
Braco Dimitrijevi, on the other hand, pieces without being a dancer, or Bob
plays with conventional cognition of Morris was influenced by working
public spaces by using it for private with Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer,
unknown persons. He erects monu- clearly the dancers spatial attitudes
ments to casual passers-by in public and conceptual approaches had a recip-
squares, or as blown-up photographs rocal influence.
on billboards, buses or on monumental
public buildings, and so questions the It is therefore interesting to see that
relationship between specific public Schlemmers space as praxis has
information and the individual and that been brought far beyond its original
between man and his exterior reality: I restrictions by the relationship be-
refer primarily to our automatic accep- tween conceptual artists and per-
tance of particular forms of informa- formers. But it has not gone beyond a
tion dispersal, while disregarding its very loose interpretation of theory, a
real content and to the passive and nega- confusion between theory and writ-
tive attitudes which are passed through ten instructions, between theory and
education from one generation to the two-dimensional expression. Allowing
next. Public space is equally accepted for this generalized notion of theory as
by us in this unquestioning way, and we concept, drawing or documenta-
are conditioned to read it as being unus- tion, however, it is clear that when
able for private activity. Dimitrijevis dance or conceptual art instructions
work activates the space, and in so doing are performed, space is identified with
alters our perception of it. practice. It is in space that ideas are
materialized, experience experienced.
Theory and Practice, Again Space consequently becomes the essen-
The description of these works makes tial element in the notion of practice.
one thing clear: performance art, now
58 Documents Isabel Tejeda Martn

NOTES

1Reesa Greenberg,

On the writing
Bruce W. Ferguson,
Sandy Nairne (eds.),
Thinking about
Exhibitions (London,

of exhibitions
New York: Routledge,
1996).

2Mieke Bal, The


Discourse of the
Museum, in Greenberg
et al, 201218.

3Francis Haskell, The


Ephemeral Museum: Old
Master Paintings and the
Rise of the Art Exhibition
(New Haven and London: The exhibition has become a new the need for debate on this cultural
Yale University Press, paradigm of contemporary culture. format, exhibitions have become the
2000). Sustained by its own rules and gram- medium through which most art be-
mar, and constituting a discipline in its comes known Exhibitions are the pri-
4Martha Ward, own right, it produces narratives. The mary site of exchange in the political
Impressionist exhibition is both a paradigm of what economy of art, where signification is
Installations and Private Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer constructed, maintained and occasion-
Exhibitions in The Art called the culture industry and an ally deconstructed. Yet, as Mieke Bal
Bulletin 73 no. 4 (1991): exemplary of the utilization of artistic claims, the exhibition is also an utter-
599622. expressions as an ideological and ance within the museum discourse, as I
political instrument. This essay pro- will show in the following paragraphs.
5Tony Bennett, The vides an overview of some milestone
Birth of the Museum publications that have documented and The exhibition as we know it today
(London: Routledge, explained the history of exhibitions. came into being as an offshoot of the
1995). museum and developed in parallel to
Throughout the 20th century and the the democratization of free time and
6Stephen Bann, The opening decade of the 21st, the exhibi- leisure brought about by the social
Return to Curiosity: tion has not only embraced the most conquests of modernity. The emer-
Shifting Paradigms in unprecedented manifestations of gence of tourism in the 20th century
Contemporary Museum contemporary art but has also been, was undoubtedly another element
Display in Andrew and continues to be, the driving force which, when combined with the above,
McClellan (ed.), Art and for the production of art, giving rise helped cement its success. The origins
its Publics: Museum to a kind of post-studio practice that of the exhibitions of contemporary art,
Studies at the Millennium, has transformed the ways in which however, can be traced back to the 17th
(Oxford: Blackwell art is created and understood. And, century. According to Francis Haskell,
Publishing, 2003) indeed, the ways in which it is legiti- there where exhibitions of contem-
117130. mized and consumed. As formulated porary art in Italy (usually because of
in the mid-1990s by Reesa Greenberg, a religious festivity) as well as in Paris
7Jess Pedro Bruce W. Ferguson and Sandy Nairne (with the patronage of the Academie
Lorente, Cathedrals in the introduction to Thinking about Royale de Peinture et Esculpture).
of Urban Modernity: Exhibitions, a multidisciplinary, From the 18th century to the early 1900s,
The First Museums of international anthology illustrating the temporary exhibition gradually
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 59

articulated itself as a discourse or a sci- J. Pedro Lorente. The first instance of Contemporary Art, 1800-
ence of exhibition installation that built this development led to the creation of 1930 (Aldershot: Ashgate
new models for constructing our gaze. the contemporary art museum in the Publishing Limited,
mold of the MoMA in New York (1929). 1998).
Nonetheless, when studying 19th The MoMA created a formula for ex-
century art, it is rare to find a reading hibiting artworks that would become, 8Mary Anne
that goes any further than the works in the late 1930s and early 1940s, the Staniszewski, The Power
themselves. Instead, it is the individual paradigm for temporary projects in of Display: A History of
pieces that were the focus of study for the following decades, neutralizing a Exhibition Installations
museums and historians. Quite often, portion of the creative experiences that at the Museum of
in discourses bent on the construction had been developing in the fields of Modern Art (Cambridge,
of art history with a formalist bias, both art and expography, and reduc- Massachusetts: The MIT
the object has been discussed without ing the possibilities of presentation to Press, 2001); Christoph
mention of the context of its produc- just one: the white cube. Grunenberg, The
tion or its first exhibition. Critical Politics of Presentation:
histories such as those by Martha Ward In parallel to the museum, temporary The Museum of Modern
bring to the fore the fact that artists exhibitions became the primary form Art, New York in
like Pissarro, Degas, Signac and Seurat of presenting artworks and maintain- Marcia Pointon (ed.), Art
strove to break with a type of exhibi- ing the tension between the public and Apart: Institutions and
tion design inherited from royal col- the private, between the collective and Ideology across England
lections, the so-called cluster hanging, the individual, and between academic and North America
proposing not only a revolution in the languages and new vernaculars in (Manchester: Manchester
language of painting, but also in the both official spaces and those created University Press, 1994);
way of showing it. by dissident artists throughout the Brian ODoherty, Inside
19th and 20th centuries. These ten- the White Cube: The
One of the places where these tempo- sions developed at the intersection of Ideology of the Gallery
rary exhibitions developed was the civic, commercial and social milieus, Space (Santa Monica,
museum. As studied by Tony Bennett giving rise to formulas as disparate San Francisco: The Lapis
in one of the seminal essays on the as the experimental and alternative Press, 1986).
subject, the most significant precur- exhibition, the didactic museum and
sors of the museum were the cabinets the commercial gallery. These venues 9Emma Barker,
of curiosities or studioli, rooms which acted as spaces for the cultural and Exhibiting the Canon:
contained all manner of items, dating social legitimization of the most in- The Blockbuster Show
from the Renaissance. According to novative tendencies of the 19th century, in Emma Barker (ed.),
Stephen Bann, this original source the avant-garde movements of the first Contemporary Cultures
shares some common ground with half of the 20th century and, later, of of Display (London: The
displays of contemporary art in mu- the 1960s and 1970s neo-avant-gardes, Open University, 1999).
seums. Nonetheless, the museum and while witnessing the emergence of
the studioli remain fundamentally dif- blockbuster exhibitions. 10Bernd Klser,
ferent in that, in addition to the public Katharina Hegewisch
nature of the former, the museum In this regard, an important bibliog- (eds.), Die Kunst der
stored and studied the sciences and raphy has been produced over the last Ausstellung. Eine
the arts separately. Natural sciences 30 years, although there were some Dokumentation
and fine arts museums were created precedents in the 1970s. This bibliog- dreiig exemplarischer
with the development of Positivism raphy has had the task of cataloguing Kunstausstellungen
throughout the 19th century, and these and writing the history of the exhibi- dieses Jahrhunderts
disciplines gradually branched out tions, whichbecause of the ephem- (Frankfurt am Main/
and became more specialized until eral nature of exhibitionshad been Leipzig: Insel Verlag,
they arrived, in the case of fine arts lost to oblivion when the goal of art 1991); Bruce Altshuler,
museums, at a separation between liv- history was to develop a history based The Avant-Garde in
ing and dead artists, as documented by on autonomous objects and individual Exhibition: Making it New
60 Documents Isabel Tejeda Martn

(Berkeley, Los Angeles: artists. This bibliography is still in the in the 1990s, the emphasis shifted to
University of California making. Equally of note are mono- a critical analysis of the contexts in
Press, 1994); Anna Maria graphs on the rise of other exhibition which art is produced and dissemi-
Guasch, El arte del siglo formats, such as the Venice Biennale nated, resulting in other formulas for
XX en sus exposiciones. (1895), Kassels Documenta (1955) or exhibition writing that could be illus-
1945-1995 (Barcelona: Manifesta (1996), whose mission is to trated by Martha Roslers project If You
Ediciones del Serbal, show the latest movements and tenden- Lived Here. The concluding expressions
1997); Bruce Althshuler, cies in art as well as to explore new of this trend led to the assimilation of
Salon to Biennial: curatorial models. said practices by the institutions them-
Exhibitions that Made selves. The language of the exhibition
Art History (London: These new formats echoed the formu- was recast as mediation, and artistic
Phaidon, 2008)to date las of exhibition discourses and art stances began to develop which do not
only volume I has been communication that neither remained renounce the public sphere, but rather
published, covering within the four walls of an enclosed use the same media as those existing in
from 1863 to 1959. Hans space nor paid heed to the demands public space.
Ulrich Obrist (ed.), A of contemplation. Although their
Brief History of Curating origins lie with the historical avant- At the same time, we have witnessed
(Zurich: JRP | Ringier, garde, from the 1960s onwards these an assimilation of the discursive
2008). experiments in exhibition formats strategies of the temporary exhibition,
went through a period of effervescence whose multiple narratives reject the
11Enzo Di Martino, that is still ongoing today. Artists like unified model of museum collections,
The History of the Venice Robert Smithson and Daniel Buren, a model that had become the para-
Biennale (Venice: Papiro among others, proposed presentation digm of how to exhibit art in the 20th
Arte, 2007); Michael formulas that rejected the museum and century. Gradually, the chronological
Glasmeier, Karin the white cube, establishing instead a discourse coupled with a formalist
Stengel (eds.), 50 Jahre. unity between production and exhibi- reading of contemporary artworks,
Documenta 1955-2005 tion processes. With their alternatives, as systematized by Alfred Barr at the
(Gttingen: Steidl, 2005); they demonstrated that the presenta- MoMA, has been replaced by cursory
Barbara Vanderlinden, tion formulas on which the work of art thematic and diachronic plots. With
Elena Filipovic (eds.), was predicated were limiting. the support of textual devices, the
The Manifesta Decade: intention of these exhibitions is to
Debates on Contemporary In point of fact, it was in the 1960s and generate a less contemplative gaze in
Art Exhibitions and 1970s when the first historical recov- what we could call the formula of the
Biennials in Post-Wall ery of those immaterial or ephemeral permanent-collection-as-temporary-
Europe (Cambridge, practices of the avant-garde were car- exhibition. This formula was tenta-
Massachusetts: The MIT ried out, and when artists won back the tively rehearsed in the first presenta-
Press, 2005). political stances that marked the early tion of the Tate Modern collections,
1900s. It was also at that time that criti- followed, for some time now, by other
12Robert Smithson, cal theory began to question the ideol- museums including the MoMA and the
Some Void Thoughts on ogy of modernity, deeming it restric- Centre Pompidou. Other experiments
Museums, Art Magazine, tive. The understanding of the public in exhibition models have consisted
February 1967; Daniel sphere as a social fabric in which it in offering artists the opportunity to
Buren, Fonction de is possible to intervene, and the art create their own hangings based on
latelier in Daniel Buren, practices whose critical underpinnings the museums holdings. Beuys did it in
Les crits (1965-1990) emanated from this understanding, Darmstadt, Boltanski in Baden-Baden
(Poinsot, Jean-Marc, were inevitable outcomes of those and Paris, Kosuth in Vienna and Hans
dir.), Vol. I: 1965-1976, experiences of contact with a reality Haacke in Rotterdam.
(Bordeaux: CAPC Muse beyond the museumexperiences
dart contemporain de grouped together under the umbrella On another note, until around a
Bordeaux, 1991) 195204. term of institutional critique. After decade ago, museographic bibliogra-
the rescaling of this line of thought phy largely consisted of a practical
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 61

handbook listing tools and analyz- 13Rosalind Krauss, 20Andr Malraux, Le


ing exhibition techniques from the Passages in Modern muse imaginaire (Paris:
perspective of the visual qualities Sculpture (Cambridge, Gallimard, 1965).
of the works and their conservation. Massachusetts: The MIT 21Isabel Tejeda Martn,
Such bibliographies barely broached Press, 1977). El montaje expositivo
critical discourse about how art history como traduccin.
should be told and how the exhibition 14Martha Rosler, Fidelidades, traiciones
mediates between the spectator and the Fragments of a y hallazgos en el arte
work, a question addressed by Victoria Metropolitan Viewpoint contemporneo desde los
Newhouse. Space is never neutral; in Wallis, Brian (ed.): If aos 70 (Madrid: Trama,
neither are exhibition mechanisms. You Lived Here: The City 2006).
If Malraux posited that photography in Art. Theory and Social
assimilated objects from different Activism. A project by 22Nicholas Serota,
cultures into modernist aesthetics, on Martha Rosler (Seattle, Experience or
a practical level, the elements making New York: Bay Press, Dia Interpretation: The
up the exhibition grammar do exactly Art Foundation, 1991) Dilemma of Museums
the same thing. Stepping into the arena 1545. of Modern Art (London:
of what makes an exhibition and how it Thames and Hudson,
conveys meaning has been the subject 15Nicolas Bourriaud, 1995).
of my own study. As analyzed by Esthtique relationnelle
Nicholas Serota, one of the keys to cu- (Dijon: Les Presses du 23Thomas West,
ratorial practice lies at the level of the rel, 1999). Circ dans les muses.
intervention of its formulasin other Rflexions sur sept
words, whether one opts for offering 16Paloma Blanco, nouveaux muses en
experience, understood as contempla- Jess Carrillo, Jordi Europe et aux tats-
tion in an essentialist presentation, or Claramonte, Marcelo Unis, in Cahiers du
whether one proposes a possible inter- Expsito, Modos de Muse National dArt
pretation. Although, as Thomas West hacer. Arte crtico, esfera Moderne, Loeuvre et son
maintained in an inexhaustible special pblica y accin directa accrochage, no. 1718
issue of Cahiers du MNAM about the (Salamanca: Universidad (1986).
artwork and its installation, setting up de Salamanca, 2001).
[an exhibition] is, above all, an act of
interpretation. 17Iwona Blazwick,
Frances Morris,
Showing the Twentieth
Century, in Tate Modern,
the Handbook (London,
Tate Publishing, 2000).

18Alessandra Mottola
Molfino, Letica dei
musei (Torino: Umberto
Allemandi & C., 2004).

19Victoria Newhouse,
Art and the Power of
Placement (New York:
The Monacelli Press,
2005).
62
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 63

9 Points by
Peter Osborne

1. 7.

Curating does not exhibit the properties of Good curating should be like good
a language, and therefore has no grammar. writing: invisible to the reader because
indistinguishable from what it presents.
2.
8.
It is distinguished from other cultural
practices by its complex institutional Time has always been as much a factor
history and politics, which are closely in curating as space, but its uses have
connected to (but lag behind) those of the been more stable and conventional, and
practices and concept of art. much less explored. However, recent
curatorial attempts to play with the
3. temporal aspects of exhibitions have been
more about marketing, publicity and the
Nor is it really a genrea genre of what? generation of audiences than anything
The institutional management of art, to do with immanent features of cura-
perhaps? torial projects or the works they have
presented.
4.
9.
Curating is a practice and hence more of
an act/intervention than a language with Ideas of curating as a language and of
a grammar; it is more like a speech act in the curatorial work are ungrounded.
the institutional language of art. They seem primarily directed toward
improving the social status of curators
5. by increasing their visibility on the basis
of an analogy with artistic practice. But
Its political meaning is determined by artistic materials are components of
the ways it reproduces and the ways it works; curatorial materials are works,
changes existing sets of institutional which, if productive, are negated by
relations and practices. being reduced to components of larger
curatorial works. Conceiving of curating
6. as specifically artist work thus negates
the very concept of curating art.
Its critical meaning derives from the
art-critical and art-historical framework
that determines the selection or commis-
sioning, arrangement and presentation of
works: curating is practical criticism.
64 International Foundation
wat Manifesta and Manifesta
wie 8 present

Manifesta
Coffee
Break, 12 & 13
December
2009
With
sessions
provided by

Alexandria
Contemporary
Arts Forum Chamber
of Public Secrets
Tranzit.org
Manifesta Coffee Break is a recurring public weekend gathering, serving
as a tool to discuss the concept of Manifesta in a larger critical context.
Its fifth edition takes place in Murcia, in preparation for Manifesta 8, the
European Biennial of Contemporary Art, in 2010. It will bring together
both local and international artists, curators, theorists, writers and other
art professionals to reflect on Manifestas logic in direct relation to
Murcia-Cartagena and its links with Northern Africa.
Manifesta Journal nr 7 2009 65

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