Rethinking exhibition practices and histories in China and Southeast Asia. This book is the result of various ongoing assembly platforms linked together under the same name, all organized and initiated by Biljana Ciric and hosted by St Paul St Gallery AUT (2013), Rockbund Art Museum (2018) and Guangdong Times Museum (2019). In the texts presented, writers, curators, and art practitioners in the region revisit the importance of exhibitions as a form and medium presented at assemblies. The contributors explore how exhibitions can be read and understood across different social and cultural contexts, highlighting differences within the region and inviting new approaches and methodologies that point to possibilities for comparative forms of research. The book draws further awareness to the specificity and diversity of practices found within Asia—and thereby looks to contribute decisively to a (re)mapping of exhibition practices and histories using the different perspectives and local contexts found in this region. Contributors Zdenka Badovinac, Maggie J Zheng, Seng Yujin, Patrick D. Flores, Biljana Ciric, Erin Glesson, Julia Hartmann, Nikita Yingqian Cai, Yu Wei, Wang Ziyun, Nathalie Johnson, Carlos Quijon Jr., Grace Samboh, Nhung Walsh, Zoe Butt, Alice Sarmiento, Jo Lene Ong, Zhong Yuling, Liu Di

Edited by Paul O'Neill. Introduction by Paul O'Neill, Annie Fletcher.

Consideration of recent shows of Mieke Bal's video work, framed by observations on contemporary sculpture's response to classics of the form. In Exhibition-ism, theorist and artist Mieke Bal develops the idea that exhibiting is a significant form of the contemporary. In an exhibition, visitors are in the actual company of artworks that can perform. This book considers recent shows of Bal's own video work, and is framed by observations on contemporary sculpture's response to classics of the form. Looking at art as process, Bal makes the case that the being-together-in-time of an exhibition visit encourages and, if the curation is well-thought-out, can heighten the sense of the contemporaneity--art being more capable of this than anything else.

Curating Art provides insight into some of the most socially and politically impactful curating of historical and contemporary art since the late 1990s. It offers up a museological framework for understanding watershed developments of curating in art museums. Representing the plurality of theory and practice around the expanded field of relational curating, the book focuses on curating that prioritises the quality of relationships between people and objects, between institutions and people and among people. It has wide international breadth, with particularly strong representation in East and Southeast Asia, including four papers never before translated into English. This Asian cluster illuminates the globalisation of the field and challenges dichotomies of East and West while acknowledging distinctions within specific, but often transnational, cultural spheres. The compelling philosophical perspectives and case studies included within Curating Art will be of interest to students and researchers studying curating, exhibition development and art museums. The book will also inspire current and emerging curators to pose challenging but important questions about their own practice and the relationships that this work sustains.

An anthology of writings on exhibition practice from artists, critics, curators and art historians plus artist-curators. It addresses the contradictions posed by museum and gallery sited exhibitions, as well as investigating the challenge of staging art presentations, displays or performances, in settings outside of traditional museum or gallery locales.

For better or worse, museums are changing from forbidding bastions of rare art into audience-friendly institutions that often specialize in “blockbuster” exhibitions designed to draw crowds. But in the midst of this sea change, one largely unanswered question stands out: “What makes a great exhibition?” Some of the world’s leading curators and art historians try to answer this question here, as they examine the elements of a museum exhibition from every angle. What Makes a Great Exhibition? investigates the challenges facing American and European contemporary art in particular, exploring such issues as group exhibitions, video and craft, and the ways that architecture influences the nature of the exhibitions under its roof. The distinguished contributors address diverse topics, including Studio Museum in Harlem director Thelma Golden’s examination of ethnically-focused exhibitions; and Robert Storr, director of the 2007 Venice Biennale and formerly of the Museum of Modern Art, on the meaning of “exhibition and “exhibitionmaker.” A thought-provoking volume on the practice of curatorial work and the mission of modern museums, What Makes A Great Exhibition? will be indispensable reading for all art professionals and scholars working today.