When Curating Meets Piracy: Rehashing the History of Unauthorized Exhibition-Making

This article outlines key historical instances of the practice of unauthorized exhibition-making and examines related curatorial approaches. Taking the practice of appropriation by artists and various national court cases, statutes and international agreements as points of reference, it examines how the legal and ethical rights held by artists may impinge on curators' freedom of expression. It proposes that where curators re-use an artwork in a curated project without the artist's authorization, but with a measure of criticality, those actions may be justified. A deviation in the history of exhibition-making is revealed where the freedom of expression of the curator is not subordinate to that of the artist.