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What Makes a Great Exhibition?
About this book
Rising attendance at museums, along with increased press coverage in the age of the international biennial and the ‘blockbuster’ exhibition, has translated into a growing interest in how exhibitions are made. The new curatorial studies programmes springing up across Europe and North America often deal with theoretical issues, yet one of the central questions of curating frequently remains unframed: What makes an exhibition great? In this book, fourteen essays by active curators and historians address the issue head-on.
Focusing on the curation of contemporary art in North America and Europe, What Makes a Great Exhibition? includes essays by the prolific curator Robert Storr on the meaning of ‘exhibition’ and ‘exhibition-maker’; Studio Museum in Harlem director Thelma Golden writes on ethnically specific exhibitions; Dia Foundation curator Lynne Cooke shows how to firmly ground rarified aims; Iwona Blazwick details a century of trailblazing at London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery, where she is director; and curator Carlos Basualdo reflects on the need to establish a meaningful critical context for international biennials. Other writers address such issues as the labelling of exhibits, group exhibitions, exhibiting design, video and craft, as well as the way a venue’s architecture can influence the exhibitions it houses. What Makes a Great Exhibition? contains carefully considered answers to numerous questions of practice even as it raises more questions about exhibition-making today.
Stimulating thought about how curatorial objectives mesh with on-the-ground practicalities, this book is vital reading for arts professionals, students of art and curatorial studies, art historians, practising artists and anyone curious about exhibition-making today.
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Table of contents
- Front Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- Introduction: Practice Makes Perfect PAULA MARINCOLA
- Show and Tell ROBERT STORR
- In Lieu of Higher Ground LYNNE COOKE
- You Talking To Me? On Curating Group Shows that Give You a Chance to Join the Group RALPH RUGOFF
- The Unstable Institution CARLOS BASUALDO
- With Our Faces to the Rising Sun THELMA GOLDEN WITH GLENN LIGON
- Mies’s New National Gallery: Empty and Full DETLEF MERTINS
- Design and Architecture PAOLA ANTONELLI INTERVIEWED BY BENNETT SIMPSON
- Who’s afraid of gift-wrapped kazoos? JEFFREY KIPNIS
- Handy-Crafts: A Doctrine GLENN ADAMSON
- Temple/White Cube/Laboratory IWONA BLAZWICK
- Making Space for Art MARY JANE JACOB
- Questions of Practice MARK NASH
- Wall Text INGRID SCHAFFNER
- Afterword MARIAN GODFREY
- Acknowledgments PAULA MARINCOLA
- Contributors
- Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Exhibition Grant Recipients 1998–2009
- Index
- Addenda/Errata