Curating an Activist Exhibition
Dr. Maura Reilly describes curatorial activism as, “the practice of organising art exhibitions with the principal aim of ensuring that large constituencies of people are no longer ghettoised or excluded from the master narratives of art” (Genova 2018). The traditional white cis upperclass male perspective has trampled any varied point of view or sense of expression for most of art history. The art world still has much to do about righting the wrongs of its past. Curatorial activism shares in the pursuit to have the art world understand the issues of gender, race, sexuality, and socio-economic class along with the intersectionality that runs through them all. Curating an activist exhibition requires a sensitive navigation of the human condition. It proves itself a difficult but necessary task. Through curatorial activism, curators align their work with social movements in order to make visible the problems faced by maginalised communities (Albarrán Diego 2018). Cultural institutions are far from perfect and have a long history of marginalisation whether that be a museum or university.
Museums are founded on the pillaging of other countries and reframing and interpreting artifacts through a Eurocentric perspective for their audiences (deMontigny 2018 pg. 1). Within this colonial framework, how are we meant to curate exhibitions that break through these institutional errors, errors that are continually perpetuated? What Maura Reilly describes as the “art system” — that is its history, market, press, institution, etc.— is hegemonic and caters to cis-white male creativity (Reilly 2018 pg. 21). Curatorial activists commit themselves to working within the margins of society and working with initiatives that level the hierarchy (Reilly 2018 pg. 22). However the institutions that house them are built on this hegemony that is systematic and has made it next to impossible for anyone but cis-white men to succeed (Reilly 2018 pg. 22).
Reilly merits two strategies of resistance in order to combat this stats quo, revisionism and areas of study. Revisionism is the rewriting and reclamation of history in order to include those who have been struck from the record (Reilly 2018 pg. 23). By pursuing a revisionist strategy to correcting the cannon of art history, one rediscovers what has been concealed and suppressed from it which questions the institutional structures in which it stands (Reilly 2018 pg. 23). Although it is a worthy attempt at rectification, revisionism still accepts the Eurocentric white male perspective as central to art history and maintains the hierarchy as a natural condition (Reilly 2018 pg. 24). This maintains that anyone classified as other is still shone in a context of subordination (Reilly 2018 pg. 24). Hence, revisionism is fundamentally impossible because it can do nothing to change the system that it works within (Reilly 2018 pg. 25). With that said, it is still an incredibly important pursuit no matter its shortcomings because it allows for the varied perspectives of those who were never given the chance to do so in the past.
Areas of study on the other hand focuses on reworking the cannon in order to give spaces or “areas” to marginalised communities (Reilly 2018 pg. 25). The criticism behind this theory is often summed up to the assumption that these types of spaces and exhibitions that promote and perpetuate the otherness that has been inflicted to these communities throughout history. Critics argue that because the contemporary art world has now begun to include minority members there is no longer a need to create a space for them (Reilly 2018 pg. 26). This ideology assumes that these institutional injustices have been rectified and there is no longer any ongoing oppression. However, if these areas of study are not nourished then these artists will continue to be erased and marginalised (Reilly 2018 pg. 28). Although the labels we put onto exhibitions included in areas of study such as “black,” “queer,” or “women,” are inherently exclusionary and preserve this otherness, areas of study are essential until these communities can garner an equal amount of representation (Reilly 2018 pg. 28). These spaces create solidarity within communities that support and promote a call to action on social and political issues (Reilly 2018 pg. 29).
Although revisionism and areas of study are pertinent to curatorial activism there is also a need to create a dialogue between institutions and those that it has oppressed. The role of the curator must also be questioned and redefined, this would mean promoting non-conventional formats and collaborative curator processes (Albarrán Diego 2018). Looking at curatorial activism critically, one could even think curators to be reinforcing their positions by glamorising a much more perilous type of activism (Albarrán Diego 2018). Curators are deputies of the institution that must question their positions and the structures in which they operate (Albarrán Diego 2018). Only through this radical questioning can there be a legitimate discourse that can reconstruct the circumstances in which these institutions operate (Albarrán Diego 2018).
All of the above models are easier said than done. Working within a system that has and continues to actively oppress and subjugate so-called others, makes it extremely difficult to cultivate a platform for them. However sometimes we only have the tools at our disposal and any fight is better than no fight at all. Resistance in Residence attempted to demonstrate these themes within the exhibition and the work we did to curate it. We attacked the problems of gender and socio-economic class and created an exhibition that would bring attention to the struggles and the action that these communities continue to fight for. I would like to also take this time to acknowledge that although we have created an activist exhibition involving the perspectives of those fighting for the right to safe and damp-free housing in Scotland, we failed in showing an array of culturally and racially diverse artists that are undoubtedly affected by the same ailments as those represented in the exhibition. It was however an activist exhibition within a colonial institution and our attempt was not in vain.
References
Albarrán Diego, Juan. “Curating Activism: Art, Politics and Exhibitions (in, around, and beyond Institutions).” Critique d’Art, no. 51, 2018, pp. 17–29., https://doi.org/10.4000/critiquedart.36575
DeMontigny , Breanna. “CURATORIAL ACTIVISM: TURNING ACTIVISM INTO PRACTICE.” University of Oregon, 2018.
Han-sol, Park. “Exhibitions Explore Idea of ‘Sustainable Museum’.” CIMAM, 23 June 2021, https://cimam.org/news-archive/exhibitions-explore-idea-of-sustainable-museum/.
Lee, Tsung Hung, et al. “Sustainability of the Exhibitions: A Stakeholder Framework.” International Journal of Development and Sustainability, vol. 7, no. 11, 2018, pp. 2797–2806.
Genova, Alexandra. “Activism in the Art World: Meet the next Generation of Radical Curators.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 11 Apr. 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/apr/11/activism-art-world-next-generation-radical-curators
Reilly, Maura, and Lucy R. Lippard. Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating. Thames & Hudson, 2018.
