Dear All,
the discussion take an interesting turn now, because we should go back to
the underlining implications of the issue. I just want to introduce myself,
I am working as the head of a postgraduate program in curating in Zurich and
I am also the publisher of the webjournal www.on-curating.org. Our last
issue also deals with the political potentiality of curating with
contributions by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Paul O’Neill, Simon Sheikh,
Mary Anne Staniszewski.
In my view the political implications cannot be separated of any pedagogy,
or to be more precise, any exhibition or art project has pedagogy of its
own. Exhibitions are communicative situations that are produced in order to
convey content. Exhibition is thus based on a didactic idea whose emphasis
or retraction can, however, vary considerably depending on the type and the
historical development. Various authors assume that the ideal viewer is also
distinguished by a certain ritual behaviour, what Eva Sturm has called the
“gesture of viewing”: the viewers move about in expressive surroundings,
observing intently, holding back, passive vis-à-vis what is shown. In some
ways, therefore, all of the media employed in exhibitions for purposes of
animation attempt to close this gap and thus seize the viewer’s attention.
And I would argue, that we have to be careful not to just fall into this
attitude when we are recognizing or proposing an educational turn. Otherwise
the situation at auto shows or other trade fairs is not fundamentally
different from this matrix: although people are permitted to touch the
objects, they may do so only in a very limited, controlled and ritualized
form – So any educational turn should questions much more in depth the
underlying paradigms and re-introduce concepts of a demotractic education.
In this perspective an education can only be democratic if there is the
possibility to change positions in the system, that the ”teacher” learns
from the ”student” and vice versa.
Oliver Marchart has proposed relating Louis Althusser’s concept of
“ideological state apparatuses,” or ISAs, to exhibition institutions as a
way of distinguishing their preformulated assumptions as either “dominating”
or “emancipatory” pedagogy. If we examine Althusser’s concept more closely,
it is evident that he conceived the formation of subjects in a highly
complex way. Althusser (so the concept is a bit rigid) viewed cultural
institutions as apparatuses that convey ideology in materialized form. The
material existence of ideologies may be thought of as rituals and practices
and thus connected as spaces, architecture, structures and objects, each of
which is performed or produced by the individuals anew. As it relates to the
situation of an exhibition, this means that not only curators but also
artists, visitors, cleaning personnel, guards and so on produce through
their actions the material form of the Ideological State Apparatus. Seen in
this way, all those involved are both actors and addressees of the ISA, even
if they may have different opportunities for access.
-- I will end here with my argument, because the notion of the different
actors who are all involved in a script, also opens up opportunities that
could go far beyond the Bologna debate, but allows also to react in a
temporary situation. (Excuse my English). Best, Dorothee
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Dorothee Richter
Studienleitung Postgraduate Program in Curating MAS
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Zürcher Hochschule der Künste ZHdK
Institute Cultural Studies in the Arts
Hafnerstrasse 31
Institut für Theorie
Hafnerstrasse 39
CH-8031 Zürich
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www.curating.org <file://www.curating.org/>
www.on-curating.org <http://www.on-curating.org/>
www.curatingdegreezero.org <http://www.curatingdegreezero.org/>
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