The Artist as Curator
WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels
Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen
Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City
de Appel, Amsterdam
Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso Para el Arte, Madrid
Mousse, Milan
Publications on museum studies, exhibition histories, and star curators make up a fast, if still burgeoning, field of exhibition studies, but the role of artists in contributing to our understanding of that ontologically ambiguous thing we call the “exhibition” is much less well discussed. Now, through primary research and new readings, this series of specially commissioned or reprinted essays by artists, curators, critics, and art historians will help address the topic, focusing on exhibitions from the post-war period to the present that specifically rethought the form of the exhibition. Two essays, combining readings of a historic and more recent exhibition, will appear in a loose insert in Mousse over the next two years and ten issues, in total examining twenty seminal art exhibitions curated by artists.
The Artist as Curator is made possible by a unique collaboration between a group of engaged art institutions and foundations. Each of the installments will be supported by a different partnering institution that helps to make this ambitious research and publication project into a reality. The first year of the project is being supported by WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels; Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen; de Appel, Amsterdam; and Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso Para el Arte. The series is edited by Elena Filipovic, published by Mousse, and will be anthologized in a final publication at the end of the two-year project. The series launches with the December issue of Mousse.
Issue #0
Mousse #41
When Exhibitions Become Form:
On the History of the Artist as Curator
ELENA FILIPOVIC
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Mel Bochner, Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to Be Viewed as Art, 1966. Installation view, The School of Visual Arts, New York, 1966. Image courtesy the artist and Peter Freeman Gallery, New York.