“Trembling thinking is the instinctual feeling that we must refuse all categories of fixed and imperial thought…it allows us to be in real contact with the world (The Glasgow Guardian, 2023).”
Figure 1. Wall text written by Edouard Glissant of The Trembling Museum (2023-2024).
The wall text, written with sincerity and profundity, was placed in an exhibition hall featuring an archival volcanic eruption and its artefact. The juxtaposition of the words and the presented relics has no doubt created tension, evoking individual reflection and contemplation towards the rethinking of contemporary museology and its pedagogical relationship with the public. According to Glissant, he advocates for “trembling thought (The Hunterian, 2023)”, a kind of thinking and sensation elicited through consonance between space, object and audience in the curatorial project.
Proposed by Wagner, Boris Groys develops his notion of Gesamtkunstwerk in his article Entering the Flow: Museum between Archive and Gesamtkunstwerk, using it as an entry point to explore the contemporary morphology of the museum (Groys, 2013). The concept of Gesamtkunstwerk can roughly be generalized as the encompassing and reciprocal integration of all elements within an art event. Instead of following the conventional format of art chronology, Groys argues that museums nowadays have become mediums that could be used to investigate the boundaries and structure of the staged event. He applies this concept to describe temporary curatorial projects in the museum space as proactive and interactive actions, which aim to resynchronize the static art collection with the present timeline, while also providing opportunities for participatory engagement and discourse.
As Claire Bishop summarized at the end of her essay Radical Museology, she wrote that having a present-minded curatorial approach could reimagine the museum “as an active, historical agent that speaks of creative questioning and dissent” and could thus suggest the audience being “aware of being presented with arguments and positions to read or contest (Bishop, 2013, p.59).” Both the ideas articulated by Bishop and Groys resonate with Glissant’s concept of ”trembling thought,” which anticipates a new form of thinking emerging from the discourse between audiences and the exhibitory materials, ultimately fostering a dynamic exchange of ideas and perspectives.
(words: 297)
Reference:
Bishop, C. (2013) Radical museology or, what’s “contemporary” in museums of contemporary art? / Claire Bishop ; with drawings by Dan Perjovschi.London: Koenig Books, pp. 59.
Groys, B. (2013) ‘Entering the Flow: Museum between Archive and Gesamtkunstwerk’, e-flux, Issue 50.
The Glasgow Guardian (2023) The Trembling Museum curators on modernism, Glissant and the problem with museums. Available at: https://glasgowguardian.co.uk/2023/12/19/the-trembling-museum-curators-on-modernism-glissant-and-the-problem-with-museums/ (Accessed: 14 March 2024).
The Hunterian (2023) The Trembling Museum. Available at: https://www.gla.ac.uk/hunterian/visit/exhibitions/exhibitionprogramme/thetremblingmuseum/ (Accessed: 14 March 2024).
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