Contemporary Curating, Artistic Reference and Public Reception: Reconsidering Inclusion, Transparency and Mediation in Exhibition Making Practice

Contemporary Curating, Artistic Reference and Public Reception critically surveys and analyzes prevailing group exhibition-making practices in Europe, the UK, and North America. It advocates for a curatorial practice that secures artwork content, proposes a third exhibition type beyond the binary, and evaluates exhibitions based on artistic equivalences using analytical philosophy. The book is relevant to academics, researchers, and students in museum and curatorial studies, visual cultures, art theory, and art history.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 172 pages
Publication date: 31 May 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Contemporary Curating, Artistic Reference, and Public Reception is a groundbreaking critical survey and analysis of prevailing group exhibition-making practices in Europe, the UK, and North America. Drawing on extensive curatorial literature and two in-depth case studies of group exhibitions, the book advocates for a mode of curatorial practice that prioritizes the safeguarding of artwork content, in contrast to the prevailing open-ended and indeterminate approaches. The author proposes a third exhibition type beyond the current binary exhibition ontology that opposes art historical narratives to curatorial installations or Gesamtkunstwerk. This innovative approach directly addresses the enduring critique of curating as a mediating activity that produces sameness in group-exhibition contexts by establishing artistic equivalences. The book relies on the principles of analytical philosophy to assess how different exhibition-making approaches fix reference and determine artistic reception, reintroducing a standard to evaluate exhibitions beyond personal taste and thematic coherence.

In the final chapter, the author offers an alternative conception of practice that affirms the renewed relevance of the institutional group show in the present context. Contemporary Curating, Artistic Reference, and Public Reception is a valuable resource for academics, researchers, and students engaged in museum and curatorial studies, visual cultures, art theory, and art history programs. Art theorists and critics, as well as curators of contemporary art with a research-based practice, will find much to interest them within the pages of this comprehensive book.

Weight: 300g
Dimension: 156 x 234 x 14 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367536367