23 The role of publishing in curating

The topic of this week’s lecture is “Publishing as curatorial practice”. Before that, my understanding of publications in curating exhibitions has always been a kind of auxiliary and extension of exhibitions, such as guide manuals, artist interview records, exhibition record books, etc., whose main function is to archive, disseminate or summarize exhibition experience. But this week’s lecture gave me a new understanding of the role of “publishing” in curating, and the publication itself can be an independent and complete curatorial exhibition.

The lecture began with an introduction to Transmission Gallery’s The Phone is the Keyhole; The Penpot, The Heart, published in collaboration with Ruine Munchen. I thought it was just a documentation of an exhibition, only to find it was not a record, but a complete curatorial project. The publication constructs a non-linear, decentralized publishing logic through artist interviews, in-committee conversations, and other textual content. This is different from what I used to understand as a publication, which does not seek to explain or summarize a certain concept, but always maintains an open, inclusive, unfinished state. Another case, Give Birth to Me Tomorrow, gave me a new understanding of the form of publication. Like the previous case, it is not a publication in the traditional sense, but a multi-frequency curatorial form composed of sound, image, moment capture and connotation of emotions. The audience can enter and leave repeatedly as they read. The publication is constantly creating openness and malleability, making its content a device that can “breathe.”