Open AccessExhibition History and the Institution as a Medium
Author(s) -
Stefano Cagol
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
stedelijk studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2405-7177
DOI - 10.54533/stedstud.vol002.art03
Subject(s) - exhibition , institution , narrative , variety (cybernetics) , politics , order (exchange) , field (mathematics) , history of art , visual arts , cultural institution , history , aesthetics , sociology , art , anthropology , literature , social science , political science , law , computer science , architecture , mathematics , finance , artificial intelligence , pure mathematics , economics
The recent debate on the relationship between histories of exhibition and art history tends to consider the former as supplementary to the latter. While it is certainly not the case that art history of the second half of the twentieth century should be reduced to a history of exhibitions—given the variety of contexts in which artists have operated—exhibition histories should likewise not be addressed only to enrich art historical narratives, or be selected according to their relationship to an art historical canon. In fact, exhibition histories provide critical tools to approach history in itself: by revealing cultural debates of the past, they help retracing histories of ideas; their expanded field highlights the connections between art and other realms, such as commerce, and they reveal politics and policies of an institution, stressing the latter in order to create a narrative to understand the present and imagine the future.