2019, summer semester, lecture series: Society into Art. Practices of Curating

Lecture series, Monday, 6pm to 8pm, c. t.

Venue: Kunstgeschichtliches Seminar, Universität Hamburg, main building: Hörsaal H, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, 20146 Hamburg

Organised by Petra Lange-Berndt, Isabelle Lindermann and Dietmar Rübel in the context of the research project around 1800. Exhibiting Art as Research

In recent years, intense debates have been sparked on what exhibitions can be or can achieve. Since the 1960s at the latest, artistic strategies have challenged format and medium and put the conditions of the institutions, in particular the so-called White Cube, at the disposal of the public. At the same time, practices of exhibiting emerged, which today are discussed under the term ‘curating’ and tested for their respective suitability or ideology. In this context, exhibitions are also regarded as spaces of powerful regimes of knowledge, but appear above all as fields of action in which current debates are conducted. From this perspective, exhibitions appear as complex structures in which different modes of action are used – which in turn are part of aesthetic, social and economic contexts. At present, feminist, postcolonial and posthumanist approaches are increasingly being pursued in the arts themselves as well as within the practices of curating, challenging established standards once again. From different perspectives at the interface between theory and practice, this lecture series is dedicated to the possible methods and politics of exhibition making that are connected with current socio-political discourses.