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{"id":172501,"date":"2011-05-01T19:29:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-02T00:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/portfolio\/la-forme-de-lexposition-est-un-texte1\/"},"modified":"2023-05-05T13:40:00","modified_gmt":"2023-05-05T18:40:00","slug":"the-form-of-the-exhibition-is-a-text","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/portfolios\/the-form-of-the-exhibition-is-a-text\/","title":{"rendered":"The Form of the Exhibition\u00a0is a Text"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
These words are taken from curator Louise D\u00e9ry\u2019s essay \u201cCurator, your love\u2019s on display\u201d (\u201cour curator exposed by love knows that the form of the exhibition is a text\u201d). As I see it, this sampling also traverses the halls of any project in the framework of which archives make history.

Building a portfolio is in itself an act of exhibition; it relies on a selection, on a perceptive arrangement in whose framework the work becomes a mediating image between someone who knows and someone who knows something else.^{1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 1 <\/a> - This idea is articulated as a personal conclusion regarding an issue raised by Manuel Borja-Villel in a lecture given at the The Now Museum: Contemporary Art, Curating Histories, Alternative Models, a conference organized by CUNY Graduate Center, Independent Curators International and the New Museum in New York, in March 2011. Also see www.ici-exhibitions.org\/index.php\/site\/events\/the_now_museum.<\/span> For a journal like esse, the decision to produce a publication around a theme is also a curatorial act; it aims to testify to issues underlying the topic under examination. In light of these observations, how does one develop the iconography of such a theme: Curators?

From the outset, one had to envisage each essay as a space on which to hang a thought, and to conceive each page, not in an attempt to illustrate the artist\u2019s subject matter\u2014an impossible endeavour it seems to me\u2014\u2009but to look through the glasses of the spectator, following that thought out loud, developing peculiar (because subjective) trajectories between the visual and the textual.<\/pre>\n\n\n\nTo develop the iconography of a thought one first has to take samples, which means making choices. My fist instinct was then to list the action verbs used by authors to describe the curator\u2019s role, as if such a listing could give me a palette of traits, could profile the typical figure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thinking out loud, I can imagine this super-curator. He might look like that work of shary Boyle\u2019s: an exemplary polyvalence with ubiquitous gaze. If the list of sampled verbs attests to the curator\u2019s field of action, erwin wurm\u2019s work featured on the cover, Be Nice To Your Curator<\/em>, is a licence for humour and self-mockery regarding the relationship between artist and curator. The Austrian artist has invested a number of years now in work that tests the definition of sculpture. His ironic Don\u2019t Trust Your Curator<\/em> presents a subversive vision of the artist\u2019s rapport with institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The essays in this issue \u201cagree\u201d on one observation. Over the last two decades, we\u2019ve witnessed the historicization of the figure of the curator. A grammar of the exhibition has been established, circumscribing a repertoire of gestures surrounding the curatorial role. In this sense, a compendium of the curator seems to have been naturally constituted on the basis of the monograph, the retrospective, and thematics. Yet, this history of museography in Quebec remains to be written. Who will dare undertake it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fundamental questions remain for the practice; among them: How to produce knowledge and know-how within the exhibition? How may several temporalities, spatialities, or identities be made to coexist in the same physical space? From the moment the curator\u2019s role was legitimized, it became possible to interchange it with other figures. Who figures among the curator\u2019s contemporaries? What are the emerging models for inscribing art into its own history?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shary Boyle, Untitled (Spider and Pentagram), 2004.
photo : Rafael Goldchain,
permission de l\u2019artiste\u2009|\u2009courtesy of the artist & Jessica Bradley Art + Projects<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe essays brought together in this issue raise a number of questions. I was given a chance to highlight certain passages with the view of relating them to the various artists\u2019 projects. In turn, images emerged in places I didn\u2019t expected them. I thus welcomed them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These images from the projects of Shary Boyle, L\u2019orchestre d\u2019hommes-\u00adorchestres, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Lavoie, Kent Monkman, Jacynthe Carrier have then been gathered together in a sampling process, like so many incisions performed on the journal\u2019s raw material, which is thought. One should envisage the reading of each essay as a commented ambulation through a gallery, a portfolio constituting a peculiar iconography given to a group exhibition of the mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cRather than base their approach to exhibition making on art historical conventions, these curators engaged in critical curatorial practice, experimenting with the very nature of the exhibition format.\u201d<\/p>\nSophia Krzys Acord <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
To experiment is to test, to elicit a phenomenon and to study it. An exhibition is built through action, through doing, by trial and error. And since the meaning of a work may change with the surroundings the curator provides it, it is important to experiment with the configuration of the exhibition, essential to listen to the resulting conversations, especially those that weren\u2019t anticipated, those emanating on the fringe. Experimentation is knowledge through experience spoken out loud. It is therefore also: knowing how to listen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
L\u2019orchestre d\u2019hommes-orchestres, Tintamarre Caravane, quais du Bassin-Louise, Qu\u00e9bec, 2008.
photo : Patricia Labrie<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\nL\u2019orchestre d\u2019hommes-orchestres,
Tintamarre Caravane, quais du Bassin-Louise, Qu\u00e9bec, 2008.
photo : Maya<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nL\u2019orchestre d\u2019hommes-orchestres, Cin\u00e9-parc, Lachine, 2010.
photo : Nicole Villiger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\u201cLike orchestra conductors, individuals in the new \u2018breed\u2019 of CURATORS WERE sought out by institutions for their wide personal networks, effective social abilities, expertise on a particular subject, and powerful visions, rather than for an advanced degree in art history.\u201d<\/p>\nSophia Krzys Acord <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Suddenly, in the midst of what I would call serious reflections, a truck appeared in the intertext: that of L\u2019orchestre d\u2019hommes-orchestres. Used in the group\u2019s projects, the truck is sometimes a barrel organ, sometimes a generator of collective memory. It keeps showing up where we least expect it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cTo exhibit haphazardly, in bulk, with no structure to govern the artistic proposition, would be to risk taking this bulk offering as the very nature of living art.\u201d<\/p>\nPaul Ardenne<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Listen to images. Sort the gear. Organize the reading. Voice its texture. Following this verbal chain, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Lavoie produced his video BARDA<\/em>, composing a montage from documentary images to create a diptych video installation. Several sound-effects specialists were invited to endow the images with sound: sequences captured in the city, excerpts selected for their potential acoustic complexity. The outcome is a multiphonic listening experience whose structure allows for selecting among sound sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nFr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Lavoie, BARDA, capture video\u2009|\u2009video still, 2011.
photos : permission de l\u2019artiste\u2009|\u2009
courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\u201cTheir first rule is to serve the artist; OF THE ART ON DISPLAY, ONLY EXHIBIT WHAT ONE FULLY UNDERSTANDS, AND FOLLOW A PROCESS BY WHICH THE ARTIST COMES FIRST.\u201d<\/p>\nPaul Ardenne<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
To know. One emphasizes the verb with satisfaction. Exhibiting what one fully knows. A good idea cannot be exhausted. An idea is not a stroke, but a constellation. Like knowledge assigned to an active role, it is touched by the present, that of the exhibition, which breathes life into it and brings it all together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cThis criticism is in part made possible thanks to the role of the curator, who, while staging his own subjectivity\u2009\u2014\u2009his \u2018obsessions,\u2019 to use Szeemann\u2019s words\u2009\u2014\u2009enables the debate and the polemics to take place.\u201d<\/p>\nJean-Philippe Uzel<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Artists often use staging devices, particularly to revisit historical events and to propose various rereadings. In Kent Monkman\u2019s orchestrated reflection on two biblical allegories\u2009\u2014\u2009the washing of Christ\u2019s feet by Mary Magdalene and Delilah\u2019s betrayal of Samson\u2009\u2014 a series of European and First Nations artefacts were borrowed from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and McCord Museum and then arranged to recreate what might be considered the collection of the artist\u2019s alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle. In this context, his mise-en-sc\u00e8ne<\/em> enables a subtle and humorous reactualization of the long-standing repressive relationship between First Nations and European colonizers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nKent Monkman, Mary, 2011.
 photos : Edward Kowal \u00a9 Kent Monkman,
permission\u2009|\u2009courtesy Bailey Fine Arts
& Pierre Francois Ouellette Art Contemporain, Montr\u00e9al<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nKent Monkman, C\u2019est avec la Couronne que j\u2019ai
conclu un trait\u00e9, vue de l\u2019installation\u2009|\u2009exhibition view,
Galerie Leonard & Bina Ellen, Montr\u00e9al, 2011.
photo : Paul Smith, permission\u2009|\u2009courtesy
Galerie Leonard & Bina Ellen, Montr\u00e9al<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\u201cIt is in the nature of the curator to exhibit him or herself, just as Buren reproached him for in 1972, but to exhibit in both senses of the term: he exhibits himself by expressing his authorial subjectivity through the selection and arrangement of artworks, but he is also exposed, for better or for worse, to the critics by giving a face to the institution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\nJean-Philippe Uzel<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cThe aptest statement on museology was given to us by art historian Hubert Damisch: l\u2019amour m\u2019expose.That was in 1989. I have often cited the phrase and still find it as relevant as it is necessary, twenty years later.\u201d<\/p>\nLouise D\u00e9ry<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Where the work is exhibited, the artist is revealed (s\u2019expose<\/em>). The curator is no exception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jacynthe Carrier, \u00c0 l\u2019errance, capture video\u2009|\u2009video still, 2010.
photo : permission de l\u2019artiste\u2009|\u2009courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\nJacynthe Carrier, Rites, capture video\u2009|\u2009video still, 2010.
photos : permission de l\u2019artiste\u2009|\u2009courtesy of the artist
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nJacynthe Carrier, Exercice \u00e9nerg\u00e9tique, 2009.
photo : permission de l\u2019artiste\u2009|\u2009courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\u201cAn exhibition never ends, really, and the takedown hardly diminishes the force of the imagination.\u201d<\/p>\nLouise D\u00e9ry<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Even if images of the work cannot be made public, Tino Sehgal\u2019s project, produced at the Guggenheim in 2010, may still be conjured here. Visitors were invited to stroll along the museum\u2019s characteristic spiralling architectural form\u2009\u2014\u2009also suggestive of the linear conception of time\u2009\u2014\u2009and to speak with participants of different generations: a child, a teenager, an adult, an elderly person, each a mediator who \u201cworked\u201d by questioning our values, or philosophical views. True, a work is a conversation that never ends. It may imbue our imaginations beyond the present of its display.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cIts intent was to identify various institutional models in order to build up an overview of artistic institutions and their strategies signifying critical engagement.\u201d<\/p>\nNathalie Desmet<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Constituting a landscape. It\u2019s a curatorial idea, but likely borrowed from the vocabulary of art production. Jacynthe Carrier has built her practice on her investment of the landscape. Creating tableaux vivants with characters who become portmanteau words, she sculpts ways of inhabiting a space without necessarily belonging to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cWhat is of interest is how one curates the condition and status of the lost work of art in a context that seeks to reflect on epistemological issues in relation to collecting and conserving.\u201d<\/p>\nMich\u00e8le Th\u00e9riault<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Acquiring a work for a collection involves a moral duty for the institution: to ensure its permanence. Yet, if stolen, it would be amoral to assume the object no longer existed. One must preserve its memory nonetheless. For the curator, the exhibition may then be conceived as a way of lending existence to physically unavailable works, namely by employing the performativity of certain kinds of documents. By exhibiting the reports on stolen works, M\u00e9lanie Rainville has shown that it is possible to reactivate their presence within a collection, without necessarily fetishizing their absence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[Translated from the French by Ron Ross]<\/span> <\/p>\n
Erwin Wurm, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Lavoie, Jacynthe Carrier, Kent Monkman, L\u2019Orchestre d\u2019Hommes-Orchestres, Marie-Eve Beaupr\u00e9, Shary Boyle<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1303,"featured_media":172294,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"categories":[281,885],"numeros":[3652],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[335],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[3228],"artistes":[3660,3370,2232,3106,3661,1812],"thematiques":[],"type_portfolio":[],"class_list":["post-172501","portfolio","type-portfolio","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive","category-portfolio","numeros-72-curators","statuts-archive","auteurs-marie-eve-beaupre-en","artistes-erwin-wurm-en","artistes-frederic-lavoie-en","artistes-jacynthe-carrier-en","artistes-kent-monkman-en","artistes-lorchestre-dhommes-orchestres-en","artistes-shary-boyle-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/172501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/portfolio"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172501"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=172501"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=172501"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=172501"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=172501"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=172501"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=172501"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=172501"},{"taxonomy":"type_portfolio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_portfolio?post=172501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}