Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
ABC:
YOU
&
ME
THE GRAMMAR
OF CURATING
5 Questions
by Zeigam Azizov
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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 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.
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.
Magic Circles
Exhibitions under
the conditions of
the society of control
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.
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
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
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
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
1 2
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
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
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
Space as Praxis
body art, land art and
performance art, with 1
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
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
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).
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
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