The curatorial condition

Abstract

"In spite of the heightened interest in the curatorial since the late twentieth century, the structural conditions and potentials underpinning its special sociocultural status have yet to be defined. Taking this as a starting point, in this book, Beatrice von Bismarck outlines the curatorial--that field of cultural activity and knowledge which relates to the becoming-public of art and culture--as a domain of practice and meaning with its own structures, conditions, rules, and procedures. Von Bismarck focuses on the relations created by the curatorial--relations that also constitute it. By concentrating on the dynamic fabric of relations between human and nonhuman participants, she carries out a shift within the discourse on the curatorial: rather than foregrounding partial definitions of the activity of curating, the subjectivization of the curator, and the presentation format of the exhibition, she emphasizes the interplay of all these factors. She proposes a conceptual framework geared toward highlighting the activity, the subject position, and the resulting product as always already dynamically interrelated in its genesis, articulation, and function. Not least, this situates the curatorial condition in the context of key parameters of societal developments over the last half century"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Curatoriality : the relational dynamics of the curatorial : an introduction -- Constellation : coming together in public -- Heterochronicity and relations in flux : "Anti-illusion : procedures/materials" (New York, 1969) -- The politics of the gesture : Joëlle Tuerlinckx's Aqui havia historia-cultura agora o (Kassel, 2002) -- Conflicts along lines of care : anti-museum, immaterial labor, and gender : A 37 90 87 (Antwerp, 1969-70) -- Transposition : moving in entanglements -- Material agency : pause and expose in the practice of Dorit Margreiter -- Shifting encounters : Julie Ault and Martin Beck's "Installation" (Vienna, 2006) -- In the language of the curatorial : fiction and imminence : Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster's "Roman de Münster" (Münster, 2007) and Sarah Pierce's "It's time man. It feels imminent" (London, 2008) -- Rehearsing evidence : "Mengele's skull" (Frankfurt am Main, 2012) and "Forensis" (Berlin, 2014) -- Hospitality : ambivalences of generosity -- Economies of visibility : Louise Lawler and the art of inviting -- Becoming-Museum : "Tensta Museum : reports from new Sweden" (Stockholm, 2013-15) -- Capitalizing relations : "When attitudes become form : Bern 1969/Venice 2013" (Venice, 2013).