The Exhibition as Medium in the Bloc

Steeds, L. (Keynote/plenary speaker)

Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference

Description

Keynote presentation entitled "Exhibition Histories: From Here and For Now", asking: What might historical study of past exhibitions of contemporary art entail and allow? While seeking to resist disciplinary claims in the name of art’s ‘exhibition histories’, this presentation shared some heuristics that might prove generative under this banner. Drawing on written, editorial, teaching and curatorial work, it focussed, in particular, on fifteen years of the "Exhibition Histories" series of publications, which have analysed eclectic shows around the world since the 1950s. Specific reference was made to artistic and curatorial practice in Scotland and from Central and Eastern Europe.

Period	10 Nov 2022
Event type	Conference
Location	Prague, Czech RepublicShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International

Keywords

contemporary art, curating, exhibition histories, Central and Eastern Europe

Documents & Links

The international conference "The Exhibition as Medium in the Bloc" aims to reflect the spread of a new art-history discipline called "Exhibition Histories", which is a field of academic research that has been in existence for several decades. Its title is partly inspired by the book "Networking the Bloc: Experimental Art in Eastern Europe 1965–1981", in which Klara Kemp-Welch examines the relationships that existed between artists in Eastern Europe and focuses on certain places where these actors networked and clashed on common platforms. It also draws on the five-year research of the Academic Research Centre of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, which focused on the history of exhibitions in Czech art from 1957 to 1999. The findings are presented in the comprehensive publication by Pavlína Morganová – Terezie Nekvindová – Dagmar Svatošová, Výstava jako médium. České umění 1957–1999 ["The Exhibition as Medium. Czech Art 1957–1999"], Academy of Fine Arts, Prague 2020.