Curatorial studies

Overview & Synopsis

This collection of essays raises a new critical reflection on a controversial and exciting topic that has brought historiographical, philological, and ethical reflections on the reenactment and the study of the history of exhibitions and performances since the 1990s. The issue of exhibition reenactment has led to a reflection in two areas: on the one hand, the reenactment not only of those auroral exhibitions of the 1970s in which performative acts were grafted onto a terrain of process art/‘arte povera’ or of those underground contexts or festivals that made a significant part of art history, but also with respect to early twentieth-century exhibitions. On the other hand, video art has to be addressed by considering its complex issues of preservation, as well as its possible transmutation into other media, when it should be defined as a document of a performance and when it should instead be considered a video-work to all intents and purposes even by the artist-creator. This book therefore covers topics ranging from the dialogue on the protagonists of the International Exhibitions of the Roman Secession between 1913 and 1916 to the establishment of the Milanese group Nuove Tendenze and their 1914 exhibition reenacted in 1980; from the reenactment of a section of the 1972 Venice Biennale in Comportamento. Venice Biennale 1972. Padiglione Italia 2017 set up at the Centro per l’arte contemporanea “Luigi Pecci di Prato” in 2017 to didactic experiences by Bruno Munari, to the performances by Tania Bruguera or Marina Abramović. The multiple lives of contemporary artistic practices are therefore analysed and enhanced through specific case studies and multiple voices.