Journal of Curatorial Studies - Volume 4, Issue 2, 2015

In the ten years of its existence, La Maison Rouge has been an influential venue in the Paris art world. Besides monographic shows, it has organized innovative exhibitions through three different pathways: internationalization, the inclusion of ‘art brut’ and other materials made by or representing psychiatric patients, and the presentation of private collections. These exhibitions were all curated carefully on the basis of thoughtful principles. Paradoxically, the institution’s anniversary exhibition Le mur seemed to undermine the very idea of curating by consigning the selection and arrangement of artworks to a computer. This article seeks to understand the paradox this curatorial methodology raises, and posits that eccentricity can be construed as a meaningful basis for constructing exhibitions.

The European Union’s media art initiative Connecting Cities and New York-based Streaming Museum are two recent examples of curatorial models that operate through large, networked digital displays. This growing exhibition category combines expressive media architecture and telecommunication elements to engage ‘trans-local’ sites and diverse publics in complex media spaces. By investigating the confluence of exhibition-making, public art and urban experience, this article explores the relationship between spectacle and criticality with respect to shifting notions of space, identity and ‘the common’.

The Centre Pompidou recently instigated a think tank to examine the history of its exhibitions, giving weight to the configuration of each show as a cultural artefact. This initiative aims to critically consider and facilitate the documentation and cataloguing of all of its exhibitions, with a focus on reviewing what past initiatives have been most successful. Each exhibition, then, is considered in terms of its various manners of inscribing cultural history. This article examines the initial stages of curatorial research at the Centre Pompidou, as well as offers a critical take on how the methodologies deployed by the institution have both enhanced the historical record of exhibitions and stimulated fresh thinking around display history.

Diasporic Chinese gardens are both aesthetic spaces showcasing Chinese artistic and cultural expressions and social spaces reflecting the social, economic and institutional circumstances of different historical eras. This article examines two Chinese gardens in the United States – the Astor Court at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1981) and Liu Fang Yuan (‘Garden of Flowing Fragrance’) in the Huntington Library, California (2008). By looking into the construction, exhibition and interpretation of these two garden spaces, this examination will explore the sociocultural politics behind three decades of exhibiting ‘Chinese-ness’ in America and how it is contextual and continuously changing.

LOVE IS ENOUGH: WILLIAM MORRIS & ANDY WARHOL Curated by Jeremy Deller, Modern Art Oxford, 6 December 2014 – 8 March 2015

CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI, ALMAS Curated by Beatriz Bustos, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile, 30 October 2014 – 4 January 2015

BIO 50 – 24TH BIENNIAL OF DESIGN LJUBLJANA Curated by Jan Boelen, Maja Vardjan and Cvetka Požar, Museum of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern Art, and eighteen other locations, Ljubljana, 18 September – 7 December 2014

OLIVIER SAILLARD AND TILDA SWINTON, THE CLOAKROOM – VESTIAIRE OBLIGATOIRE Musée de la Mode de Paris Galliera, Paris, 22–29 November 2014

CENTRE FOR INCIDENTAL ACTIVISMS (CIA) #2 Orchestrated by Emelie Chhangur, Suzanne Carte, Michael Maranda and Allyson Adley, and co-organized with Maggie Flynn, Ame Henderson, Jp King and Terrarea, Art Gallery of York University, Toronto, 6 January – 2 March 2014

FISCHLI/WEISS, ROCK ON TOP OF ANOTHER ROCK Curated by Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Julia Peyton-Jones, Serpentine Galleries, London, 7 March 2013 – 30 September 2014

HOW TO WRITE ABOUT CONTEMPORARY ART, GILDA WILLIAMS London: Thames and Hudson (2014), 264 pp., Paperback, ISBN: 978-0-50029-157-3, £12.95

CAPITAL CULTURE: J. CARTER BROWN, THE NATIONAL GALLERY, AND THE REINVENTION OF THE MUSEUM EXPERIENCE, NEIL HARRIS Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press (2013), 616 pp., Hardcover, ISBN: 978-0-22606-770-4, US$35.00

INSTITUTIONS BY ARTISTS: VOLUME ONE, JEFF KHONSARY AND KRISTINA LEE PODESVA (EDS) Vancouver: Fillip Editions and Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres (2012), 384 pp., Paperback, ISBN: 978-1-92735-402-5, CAN$20.00

YOU ARE HERE: ART AFTER THE INTERNET, OMAR KHOLEIF (ED.) Manchester and London: Cornerhouse and SPACE (2014), 256 pp., ISBN: 978-0-95695-717-7, Paperback, £15.95

CURATING: GLITTERING MYTH, SOCIAL SYMPTOM, REVOLUTIONARY FORCE? A CONFERENCE ON CURATORIAL KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION Organized by Dorothee Richter and the Research Platform for Curatorial and Cross-disciplinary Cultural Studies, Practice-Based Doctoral Programme, University of Reading in cooperation with the Postgraduate Programme in Curating, Institute for Cultural Studies in the Arts, Zurich University of the Arts. Held at Zurich University of the Arts, 15 November 2014.