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{"id":144761,"date":"2015-05-01T19:54:38","date_gmt":"2015-05-02T00:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en-quete-dun-canon-des-expositions\/"},"modified":"2023-05-02T15:27:06","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T20:27:06","slug":"in-search-of-a-canon-of-exhibitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/in-search-of-a-canon-of-exhibitions\/","title":{"rendered":"In search of a canon of exhibitions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the most visible symptoms of the art world\u2019s recent interest in the question of the exhibition can be seen in the proliferation of re-presentations\u200a\u2014\u200aremakes, re-enactments, transpositions\u200a\u2014\u200aof all kinds of exhibitions seen as important. Though small in number, they are increasingly discussed and mentioned, which tends to give them a prominent place in representations of contemporary art. The most spectacular iteration is that in which an exhibition is entirely restaged, as in the 2013 presentation of When Attitudes Become Form at the Prada Foundation in Venice (Berne, 1969; Venice, 2013). Leaving aside the significant change of context\u200a\u2014\u200athe original exhibition was staged in an eighteenth-century Venetian palazzo\u200a\u2014\u200athe reconstruction was extremely faithful to the original, bringing together many of the same works and artists, in as close an architectural reproduction as possible, and suggesting the works that were missing. The exhibition as a whole thus resembled a new kind of period room, with painstaking attention paid to the least detail (false windows, false plinths, the ordering on the walls, imitation wood floors and tiling, and other elements).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the organizers, Germano Celant, stated that he wanted to transform the original exhibition into an object: \u201cIn order to become a reflection, the exhibition was given new meaning by treating it as a readymade\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. inserting it as an \u2018archeological\u2019 citation into the exhibition spaces of Ca\u2019 Corner della Regina\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. created the same effect as the encounter between a bicycle wheel and a stool in Duchamp\u2019s Bicycle Wheel (1913).\u201d^{1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 1 <\/a> - Germano Celant, \u201cA Readymade: When Attitudes Become Form,\u201d exhibition brochure for When Attitudes Become Form<\/em>, Bern 1969\/Venice 2013, n.p.<\/span> He also implied that a kind of transcendence might be conceivable in this exhibition: \u201c.\u2009.\u2009. the operation of reconstructing and one-time restaging When Attitudes Become Form<\/em> is not connected with a fetishistic and nostalgic dimension, but mirrors a reality that has passed and been erased, yet can still have a significance.\u201d^{2<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 2 <\/a> - Ibid.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Primary Structures<\/strong>
Others 1<\/em>, 2014, installation views, The Jewish Museum, New York.
Photos : David Heald\/The Jewish Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
\n
$\"\"$
Other Primary Structures<\/strong>
Others 1 & 2<\/em>, 2014, installation views, The Jewish Museum, New York.
Photos : Kris Graves & David Heald \/The Jewish Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Similar concerns had previously been in evidence in the exhibition *Vides<\/em>, in the National Museum of Modern Art at the Pompidou Centre in 2009.*^{3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 3 <\/a> - Vides, MNAM-Centre Pompidou, February 25 to March 23, 2009.<\/span> Vides was more a metaphorical evocation than a literal reconstruction; the elements of the original presentation were entirely put aside in favour of freeing up a series of uniform empty spaces in the museum. The questions raised were nonetheless not so different from those put forward in When Attitudes Become Form<\/em>, especially because here, too, a discourse was laid out in a certain number of arguments or examples originating in historic exhibitions. A similar phenomenon can be seen, to various degrees, in a great many exhibitions in recent years, whether an exhibition is remounted in order to complete it, as is the case with *Primary Structures<\/em> (1966)\u200a\u2014\u200are-presented in the same venue where it was held the first time*^{4<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 4 <\/a> - Other Primary Structures, Jewish Museum, New York, May 14 to August 3, 2014.<\/span>\u200a\u2014\u200aor when elements borrowed from this or that exhibition are allusively integrated, as was done in the evocation of a 1959 hanging of works by Julio Gonzalez at documenta (13).<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
$\"\"$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
$\"\"$
When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969\/Venice 2013<\/em>, 2013, installation views, Fondazione Prada, Venise.
Photos : Attilio Maranzano, courtesy of Fondazione Prada, Venise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Writing Art History Differently<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Whether they are evocations or transpositions of past shows, re-presentations have important implications for thinking about art history because they also involve restaging the original contexts for presenting the works as elements signifying a particular history. This phenomenon is part of a well-established general trend whose aim is to reorient art history toward a more general cultural or social history. This trend obviously evinces an important break with the decontextualizing practices of modernist narratives and of the early museums of modern art.^{5<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 5 <\/a> - Regarding the first exhibitions at MOMA, see in particular Mary Anne Staniszewski, The Power of Display: A History of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998).<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the situation has changed, it is because, for some time now, the legitimization of historical avant-gardes by bringing them into museum-level institutions is no longer an issue; rather, it is a question of critically revisiting their histories. The re-creation of exhibitions has been part of this process since at least Germano Celant\u2019s Ambiente\/Arte at the 1976 Venice Biennale and Pontus Hult\u00e9n\u2019s inaugural series of exhibitions at the Pompidou Centre (Paris-New York, Paris-Berlin, Paris-Moscow, Paris-Paris [1977\u200a\u2013\u200a81]). In fact, few shows with the intention of providing a historical perspective on modern or contemporary art history haven\u2019t envisaged a more or less elaborate re-presentation or evocation of exhibitions seen as significant. Following this logic, museums and art centres are undertaking more and more research on and evaluation of their own exhibitions.^{6<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 6 <\/a> - For example, this is the case with the Pompidou Centre and its plans to develop a catalogue raisonn\u00e9 of its exhibitions since 2011. See also, for the Magasin de Grenoble, Magasin 1986-2006 (Zurich and Grenoble: JRP Ringier and Le Magasin CNAC, 2006); for the Centre des arts actuels SKOL in Montr\u00e9al, Les commensaux: quand l\u2019art se fait circonstances, 2001; for the Nouveau Mus\u00e9e\/Institut d\u2019art contemporain in Veilleurbanne, Jean-Louis Maubant, ed., Ambition d\u2019art, 2 vol. (Villeurbanne and Lyon: IAC and Les presses du r\u00e9el, 2008); for the CAPC in Bordeaux, Paul Ardenne, CAPC Mus\u00e9e 1973-1993 (Paris and Bordeaux: \u00c9ditions du Regard and CAPC Mus\u00e9e), 1993; for the Consortium in Dijon, Xavier Douroux, Frank Gautherot, and \u00c9ric Troncy, eds., Compilation : Une exp\u00e9rience de l\u2019exposition (Dijon: Les presses du r\u00e9el, 1998); among others.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Re-presenting exhibitions has important implications insofar as artworks are shown not so much for themselves as for the ways in which they illustrate choices: the relationships or historical perspectives on display are deployed by the exhibition organizers rather than the artists. In fact, the increasing importance of this sort of practice, in the context of both permanent and temporary installations dedicated to modern and contemporary artists, reflects the interest of conservators and curators in the central role played by mediators in art history, at the expense of the notions of the artwork\u2019s autonomy and self-referentiality\u200a\u2014\u200aalso borrowed from sweeping modernist narratives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$\"\"$
When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969\/Venice 2013<\/em>, 2013, installation view, Fondazione Prada, Venise.
Photo : Attilio Maranzano, courtesy of Fondazione Prada, Venise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The Canon of Exhibitions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The return, in recent years, to past exhibitions in various re-presentations cannot help but raise the question\u200a\u2014\u200aa familiar one in the arts\u200a\u2014\u200aof finding inspiration in a model. Some focus on proximal research (calling to mind the issue of imitation), whereas others work toward creating distance\u200a\u2014\u200atransposition or transformation\u200a\u2014\u200aand make space for the expression of the person confronted by the model. It is true that, independent of the question of art history or of the gaze brought to bear by institutions on their own history, restagings of exhibitions presuppose another issue: supplying examples for contemporary curators. The review (sometimes literal) of past shows\u200a\u2014\u200aan obligatory rite of passage for any young curator\u200a\u2014\u200athus takes on a new function: justifying present-day exhibitions through references to earlier ones now seen as exemplary.^{7<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 7 <\/a> - In some cases, such as When Attitudes Become Form, the use of reference seems limitless. See How Latitudes Become Form: Art in a Global Age (Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 2003); When Speeds Become Form (Se\u00fal, Portugal, 2007); Alter Ego. Quand les relations deviennent formes (Taninges, Chartreuse de M\u00e9lan, 2008); When Lives Become Form\u200a\u2014\u200aContemporary Brazilian Art: 1960s to the Present (Tokyo, Museum of Contemporary Art, 2008\u200a\u2013\u200a09); Quand les attitudes\u2026 (Toulouse, Printemps de septembre, 2009); When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitude (San Francisco, CCA Wattis, 2012); When Contents Become Form (London, Arbeit Gallery, 2013); When Platitudes Become Form (Toronto, Mercer Union, 2013); and others.<\/span> This question thus presupposes the existence of a canon of exhibitions\u200a\u2014\u200athat is, a body of shared references, which might serve as a reservoir of models for emerging curators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is in this sense that we must no doubt understand the recent appearance of numerous books exploring the history of exhibitions, some of which aim, quite explicitly, to contribute to the construction of such a canon. As the curator Jens Hoffmann writes in the introduction to his book about the most influential exhibitions, \u201cIt is impossible for any field truly to progress without understanding its own past.\u201d ^{8<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 8 <\/a> - Jens Hoffmann, Show Time: The 50 Most Influential Exhibitions of Contemporary Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 2014), 11\u200a\u2013\u200a12.<\/span> The critic Simon Sheikh remarks that the historicization of exhibitions and the canonization of some of them goes hand in hand with the professionalization of the field of organizing exhibitions\u200a\u2014\u200aa situation in which exhibition organizers are trained in specialized schools rather than on the job through internships, self-education, or in museums. In fact, from the moment that curatorial education was formalized, its history was necessarily normalized.^{9<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 9 <\/a> - Simon Sheikh, \u201cOn the Standards of Standards, or, Curating and Canonization,\u201d MJ-Manifesta Journal, Journal of Contemporary Curatorship, No. 11 (2010\u200a\u2013\u200a11), 15.<\/span> Thus, the canon has a double role: it is at once a body of references serving as examples for future curators and a repertoire of counter-models against which to position oneself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The question of establishing a canon is, however, more complex than it seems. The art historian and curator Christian Rattemeyer explains it this way: in addition to the absence of universal reference points in the field, there is neither a terminology nor a descriptive methodology shared by all researchers. Exhibition \u201cgenres\u201d are not firmly established and categories allowing one to define what may qualify as innovative or experimental in a project are lacking, as is anything that might distinguish such projects as successes or failures. He asks, \u201cHow do we compare different modalities of display, curatorial selections, the changing interactions between curators and artists, expectations for and from the viewers?\u201d ^{10<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 10 <\/a> - Christian Rattemeyer, \u201cWhat History of Exhibitions?,\u201d The Exhibitionist: Journal on Exhibition Making, No. 4 [Berlin, Archive Books] (June 2011), 37.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
$\"\"$ <\/figure>\n\n\n\n
$\"\"$
Vides. Une r\u00e9trospective<\/em>, 2009, installation views, Centre Georges-Pompidou, Paris.
Photos : Georges Meguerditchian, \u00a9 Centre Pompidou, Paris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
These questions lead to others that refer to the development of an autonomous curatorial field, which we\u2019ve been seeing for the last decade or so.^{11<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 11 <\/a> - On this question see, notably, Beatrice von Bismark, J\u00f6rn Schafaff, and Thomas Weski, eds., Cultures of the Curatorial (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2012).<\/span> From this point of view, we might recall that in Pierre Bourdieu\u2019s view a field may also be understood as a game, an understanding of the rules of which is required for those who wish to take part in it: \u201cThrough the practical knowledge of the principles of the game that is tacitly required of new entrants, the whole history of the game, the whole past of the game is present in each act of the game. It is no accident that, together with the presence in each work of traces of the objective (and sometimes even conscious) relationship to other works, one of the surest indices of the constitution of a field is the appearance of a corps of conservators of lives\u200a\u2014\u200athe biographers\u200a\u2014\u200aand of works\u200a\u2014\u200athe philologists, the historians of art and literature, who start to archive the sketches, the drafts, the manuscripts\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u201d ^{12<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 12 <\/a> - Pierre Bourdieu, \u201cSome Properties of Fields,\u201d in Sociology in Question, trans. Richard Nice (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1993), 74.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
One must therefore consider, alongside Simon Sheikh, that the question that arises is not so much knowing which exhibition should or should not be part of the canon, but who should formulate that canon.^{13<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 13 <\/a> - Sheikh, op. cit., 16.<\/span>Obviously, the matter is not limited to naming individuals. It is also a question of the manner in which this writing issues from an \u201cinstitutional inscription\u201d: the form of knowledge that legitimizes it and that it addresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Translated from the French by **Peter Dub\u00e9<\/strong><\/p>\n**
J\u00e9r\u00f4me Glicenstein, Other Primary Structures<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1303,"featured_media":4130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281,882],"tags":[],"numeros":[4484],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[960],"artistes":[5729],"thematiques":[],"type_post":[319],"class_list":["post-144761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive","category-post","numeros-84-exhibitions","auteurs-jerome-glicenstein-en","artistes-other-primary-structures-en","type_post-principal"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"type_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_post?post=144761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

Other Primary Structures<\/strong>
Others 1<\/em>, 2014, installation views, The Jewish Museum, New York.
Photos : David Heald\/The Jewish Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
\n
$\"\"$
Other Primary Structures<\/strong>
Others 1 & 2<\/em>, 2014, installation views, The Jewish Museum, New York.
Photos : Kris Graves & David Heald \/The Jewish Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Similar concerns had previously been in evidence in the exhibition *Vides<\/em>, in the National Museum of Modern Art at the Pompidou Centre in 2009.*^{3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 3 <\/a> - Vides, MNAM-Centre Pompidou, February 25 to March 23, 2009.<\/span> Vides was more a metaphorical evocation than a literal reconstruction; the elements of the original presentation were entirely put aside in favour of freeing up a series of uniform empty spaces in the museum. The questions raised were nonetheless not so different from those put forward in When Attitudes Become Form<\/em>, especially because here, too, a discourse was laid out in a certain number of arguments or examples originating in historic exhibitions. A similar phenomenon can be seen, to various degrees, in a great many exhibitions in recent years, whether an exhibition is remounted in order to complete it, as is the case with *Primary Structures<\/em> (1966)\u200a\u2014\u200are-presented in the same venue where it was held the first time*^{4<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 4 <\/a> - Other Primary Structures, Jewish Museum, New York, May 14 to August 3, 2014.<\/span>\u200a\u2014\u200aor when elements borrowed from this or that exhibition are allusively integrated, as was done in the evocation of a 1959 hanging of works by Julio Gonzalez at documenta (13).<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
$\"\"$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
$\"\"$
When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969\/Venice 2013<\/em>, 2013, installation views, Fondazione Prada, Venise.
Photos : Attilio Maranzano, courtesy of Fondazione Prada, Venise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Writing Art History Differently<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Whether they are evocations or transpositions of past shows, re-presentations have important implications for thinking about art history because they also involve restaging the original contexts for presenting the works as elements signifying a particular history. This phenomenon is part of a well-established general trend whose aim is to reorient art history toward a more general cultural or social history. This trend obviously evinces an important break with the decontextualizing practices of modernist narratives and of the early museums of modern art.^{5<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 5 <\/a> - Regarding the first exhibitions at MOMA, see in particular Mary Anne Staniszewski, The Power of Display: A History of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998).<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the situation has changed, it is because, for some time now, the legitimization of historical avant-gardes by bringing them into museum-level institutions is no longer an issue; rather, it is a question of critically revisiting their histories. The re-creation of exhibitions has been part of this process since at least Germano Celant\u2019s Ambiente\/Arte at the 1976 Venice Biennale and Pontus Hult\u00e9n\u2019s inaugural series of exhibitions at the Pompidou Centre (Paris-New York, Paris-Berlin, Paris-Moscow, Paris-Paris [1977\u200a\u2013\u200a81]). In fact, few shows with the intention of providing a historical perspective on modern or contemporary art history haven\u2019t envisaged a more or less elaborate re-presentation or evocation of exhibitions seen as significant. Following this logic, museums and art centres are undertaking more and more research on and evaluation of their own exhibitions.^{6<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 6 <\/a> - For example, this is the case with the Pompidou Centre and its plans to develop a catalogue raisonn\u00e9 of its exhibitions since 2011. See also, for the Magasin de Grenoble, Magasin 1986-2006 (Zurich and Grenoble: JRP Ringier and Le Magasin CNAC, 2006); for the Centre des arts actuels SKOL in Montr\u00e9al, Les commensaux: quand l\u2019art se fait circonstances, 2001; for the Nouveau Mus\u00e9e\/Institut d\u2019art contemporain in Veilleurbanne, Jean-Louis Maubant, ed., Ambition d\u2019art, 2 vol. (Villeurbanne and Lyon: IAC and Les presses du r\u00e9el, 2008); for the CAPC in Bordeaux, Paul Ardenne, CAPC Mus\u00e9e 1973-1993 (Paris and Bordeaux: \u00c9ditions du Regard and CAPC Mus\u00e9e), 1993; for the Consortium in Dijon, Xavier Douroux, Frank Gautherot, and \u00c9ric Troncy, eds., Compilation : Une exp\u00e9rience de l\u2019exposition (Dijon: Les presses du r\u00e9el, 1998); among others.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Re-presenting exhibitions has important implications insofar as artworks are shown not so much for themselves as for the ways in which they illustrate choices: the relationships or historical perspectives on display are deployed by the exhibition organizers rather than the artists. In fact, the increasing importance of this sort of practice, in the context of both permanent and temporary installations dedicated to modern and contemporary artists, reflects the interest of conservators and curators in the central role played by mediators in art history, at the expense of the notions of the artwork\u2019s autonomy and self-referentiality\u200a\u2014\u200aalso borrowed from sweeping modernist narratives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$\"\"$
When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969\/Venice 2013<\/em>, 2013, installation view, Fondazione Prada, Venise.
Photo : Attilio Maranzano, courtesy of Fondazione Prada, Venise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The Canon of Exhibitions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The return, in recent years, to past exhibitions in various re-presentations cannot help but raise the question\u200a\u2014\u200aa familiar one in the arts\u200a\u2014\u200aof finding inspiration in a model. Some focus on proximal research (calling to mind the issue of imitation), whereas others work toward creating distance\u200a\u2014\u200atransposition or transformation\u200a\u2014\u200aand make space for the expression of the person confronted by the model. It is true that, independent of the question of art history or of the gaze brought to bear by institutions on their own history, restagings of exhibitions presuppose another issue: supplying examples for contemporary curators. The review (sometimes literal) of past shows\u200a\u2014\u200aan obligatory rite of passage for any young curator\u200a\u2014\u200athus takes on a new function: justifying present-day exhibitions through references to earlier ones now seen as exemplary.^{7<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 7 <\/a> - In some cases, such as When Attitudes Become Form, the use of reference seems limitless. See How Latitudes Become Form: Art in a Global Age (Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 2003); When Speeds Become Form (Se\u00fal, Portugal, 2007); Alter Ego. Quand les relations deviennent formes (Taninges, Chartreuse de M\u00e9lan, 2008); When Lives Become Form\u200a\u2014\u200aContemporary Brazilian Art: 1960s to the Present (Tokyo, Museum of Contemporary Art, 2008\u200a\u2013\u200a09); Quand les attitudes\u2026 (Toulouse, Printemps de septembre, 2009); When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitude (San Francisco, CCA Wattis, 2012); When Contents Become Form (London, Arbeit Gallery, 2013); When Platitudes Become Form (Toronto, Mercer Union, 2013); and others.<\/span> This question thus presupposes the existence of a canon of exhibitions\u200a\u2014\u200athat is, a body of shared references, which might serve as a reservoir of models for emerging curators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is in this sense that we must no doubt understand the recent appearance of numerous books exploring the history of exhibitions, some of which aim, quite explicitly, to contribute to the construction of such a canon. As the curator Jens Hoffmann writes in the introduction to his book about the most influential exhibitions, \u201cIt is impossible for any field truly to progress without understanding its own past.\u201d ^{8<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 8 <\/a> - Jens Hoffmann, Show Time: The 50 Most Influential Exhibitions of Contemporary Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 2014), 11\u200a\u2013\u200a12.<\/span> The critic Simon Sheikh remarks that the historicization of exhibitions and the canonization of some of them goes hand in hand with the professionalization of the field of organizing exhibitions\u200a\u2014\u200aa situation in which exhibition organizers are trained in specialized schools rather than on the job through internships, self-education, or in museums. In fact, from the moment that curatorial education was formalized, its history was necessarily normalized.^{9<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 9 <\/a> - Simon Sheikh, \u201cOn the Standards of Standards, or, Curating and Canonization,\u201d MJ-Manifesta Journal, Journal of Contemporary Curatorship, No. 11 (2010\u200a\u2013\u200a11), 15.<\/span> Thus, the canon has a double role: it is at once a body of references serving as examples for future curators and a repertoire of counter-models against which to position oneself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The question of establishing a canon is, however, more complex than it seems. The art historian and curator Christian Rattemeyer explains it this way: in addition to the absence of universal reference points in the field, there is neither a terminology nor a descriptive methodology shared by all researchers. Exhibition \u201cgenres\u201d are not firmly established and categories allowing one to define what may qualify as innovative or experimental in a project are lacking, as is anything that might distinguish such projects as successes or failures. He asks, \u201cHow do we compare different modalities of display, curatorial selections, the changing interactions between curators and artists, expectations for and from the viewers?\u201d ^{10<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 10 <\/a> - Christian Rattemeyer, \u201cWhat History of Exhibitions?,\u201d The Exhibitionist: Journal on Exhibition Making, No. 4 [Berlin, Archive Books] (June 2011), 37.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
$\"\"$ <\/figure>\n\n\n\n
$\"\"$
Vides. Une r\u00e9trospective<\/em>, 2009, installation views, Centre Georges-Pompidou, Paris.
Photos : Georges Meguerditchian, \u00a9 Centre Pompidou, Paris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
These questions lead to others that refer to the development of an autonomous curatorial field, which we\u2019ve been seeing for the last decade or so.^{11<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 11 <\/a> - On this question see, notably, Beatrice von Bismark, J\u00f6rn Schafaff, and Thomas Weski, eds., Cultures of the Curatorial (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2012).<\/span> From this point of view, we might recall that in Pierre Bourdieu\u2019s view a field may also be understood as a game, an understanding of the rules of which is required for those who wish to take part in it: \u201cThrough the practical knowledge of the principles of the game that is tacitly required of new entrants, the whole history of the game, the whole past of the game is present in each act of the game. It is no accident that, together with the presence in each work of traces of the objective (and sometimes even conscious) relationship to other works, one of the surest indices of the constitution of a field is the appearance of a corps of conservators of lives\u200a\u2014\u200athe biographers\u200a\u2014\u200aand of works\u200a\u2014\u200athe philologists, the historians of art and literature, who start to archive the sketches, the drafts, the manuscripts\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u201d ^{12<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 12 <\/a> - Pierre Bourdieu, \u201cSome Properties of Fields,\u201d in Sociology in Question, trans. Richard Nice (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1993), 74.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
One must therefore consider, alongside Simon Sheikh, that the question that arises is not so much knowing which exhibition should or should not be part of the canon, but who should formulate that canon.^{13<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 13 <\/a> - Sheikh, op. cit., 16.<\/span>Obviously, the matter is not limited to naming individuals. It is also a question of the manner in which this writing issues from an \u201cinstitutional inscription\u201d: the form of knowledge that legitimizes it and that it addresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Translated from the French by **Peter Dub\u00e9<\/strong><\/p>\n**
J\u00e9r\u00f4me Glicenstein, Other Primary Structures<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1303,"featured_media":4130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281,882],"tags":[],"numeros":[4484],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[960],"artistes":[5729],"thematiques":[],"type_post":[319],"class_list":["post-144761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive","category-post","numeros-84-exhibitions","auteurs-jerome-glicenstein-en","artistes-other-primary-structures-en","type_post-principal"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=144761"},{"taxonomy":"type_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_post?post=144761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}