Beyond the Box: Diverging Curatorial Practices - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0920159990 ISBN 13: 9780920159996

Publisher: Banff Centre Press, 2003

Synopsis

Published in association with the Banff International Curatorial Institute and the Walter Phillps Gallery. The white cube -- it's a vision of the gallery museum that has dominated thinking and practice in the art world for decades. Beyond the Box: Diverging Curatorial Practices is a collection of essays by leading Canadian and international curators and artists that explores regions of practice outside this "cube," delving into contemporary challenges to traditional ideas about art and curating. With four main topics of inquiry--Publications, New Media, Biennials and Art Museums Today--Beyond the Box captures groundbreaking thinking and writing from some of the world's top curator's and artists. It exposes the passion, creativity and determination behind successes such as the publications of the Hoopoe-Curatorial, and installations like The Universal Lab, as well as critical commentary documenting the collapse of the 2000 Sao Paulo Biennial. The third in a series of books about curatorship published by the Banff Centre Press in association with the Walter Phillps Gallery and the Banff International Curatorial Institute, Beyond the Box will be a touchstone for artists and curators alike. Other books in the series include Naming a Practice: Curatorial Strategies for the Future (collected by Peter White, 1996) and The Edge of Everything: Reflections on Curatorial Practice (edited by Catherine Thomas, 2002).

About this title

From the Publisher

Publications
- Thoughts on Exhibition Publishing, by Peter White
Explores the disappointments and victories of art publishing in Canada and around the world, taking the Hoopoe Curatorial Canada-India publishing project as his major example. White tackles questions such as "What does a bookfair have to do with art?" and "How do you effectively produce and distribute art books to readers so that they will read them?" with reference to aspects of publication such as design, source, intent, technology, and external forces.

- A River, not a Road. Publishing in the Arts: The Seagull Experience, by Anjum Katyal
Documents the history of Seagull Books in Calcutta, India, a publisher that in 1982 answered the desperate cry for a publisher to document the arts in India. This essay not only explores the history of a publishing company, but also of the arts in contemporary India.

- Hurrah for the Irish! by Susan Martin
While she wouldn't call herself a curator, Susan Martin has been a promoter of avant-garde publications in the US for the past 25 years. In "Hurrah for the Irish!" she reflects on her role in founding Some Serious Business, an artist-run centre in L.A., and Greystone Books, and her role at Track 16 gallery in New York which put out the powerful publication: Decade of Protest, a photographic chronicle of 1960s America. She also reflects on the career and work of Tom Patchett, founder of Smart Art Press, modelled on the famous Something Else Press of Dave Higgins.

- Ping, by Bruce Grenville
Explores the pros and cons of electronic publication in the arts, drawing on his experience with the Thomas Bewick web-publication project at the Edmonton Art Gallery in 1995, and Canada's Most Wanted and Unwanted Paintings done by the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1999. Grenville also reflects on his work with traditional print publications with artists such as Gathie Falk.

Biennials
- Biennials Biennials Biennials Biennials Biennials Biennials, by Ivo Mesquita
Explores the history and importance of biennial exhibitions, focusing on Mesquita's experience with the Biennale de São Paulo. Mesquita delves into the culture and meaning of the biennial as event and provides context for its place in a globalized economy.

- Another Hysterical Attempt to Theorize About Defeat: Untimely Remarks on the Fate of the XXV Biennale de São Paulo’s Curatorial Team, by Cuauhtémoc Medina
Provides critical commentary documenting the collapse of the 2000 São Paulo biennial. Medina, adjunct curator of the curatorial team that attempted to create the 2000 biennial in São Paulo relives the project.

- International Exhibitions: A Distribution System for a New Art World Order, by Jessica Bradley
Attempts to answer the question, "Does the wholesale transporting of art and artists to ever more exotic contexts impede or encourage understanding and communication within a globally dispersed and culturally diverse international scene today?" Bradley explores the world of international exhibitions and its effects on artists and curators.

Art Museums Today
- Contemporary Art Practices and the Museum: To be Reconciled at All? by Stella Rollig
Explores the place of contemporary Art Museums and her own attitude towards them. Rollig uses a variety of examples from that of Andrea Fraser's gallery talks, which examine the place of the museum, to the use of museums as archive spaces, relaxing spaces, anything but the "white cube" that they once were, to redefine the notion of the museum for the purposes of art exhibition.

- "A Museum is not a business. It is run in a businesslike fashion." by Andrea Fraser
Documents the recent history of the major art museums in the United States and Britain, revealing a corporatization trend in their operations. From the attack on the Brooklyn Museum in 1999 by then-mayor Rudolf Giuliani, to the corporate funding behind the Tate Museum in London, Fraser shows how corporate sponsorship is affecting the art museum today.

- Fidelity, Betrayal, Autonomy: Within and Beyond the Post Cold-War Art Museum, by Gregory Sholette
Seeks to comprehend the answer to the question: "If the end of the Cold War (and of modernism) has brought a new level of inclusiveness to ... cultural institutions, what has become of the once defiant notion of a counterculture?" Working within and without the art institution, Sholette questions the roles of curators and art administrators in today's "counter culture" with references to such exhibitions as The Universal Lab and Civil Disturbances: Battles for Justice in New York City.

New Media
- Silicon to Carbon: Thought Chips, by Sara Diamond
Questions the common framework used by new media artists and curators when putting together projects and exhibitions. Diamond's essay is a post-2000 Curatorial Summit essay, commissioned for the book to reflect on the findings of the Summit's New Media panel and provides further thinking about the place of the New Media in the art world.

- Towards a Theory of the Practice of Curating New Media Art, by Sarah Cook
Focuses on the curatorial role of creating context by outlining the current state of new media art curating. Cook examines existing theories about curating, then describes the aesthetic qualities of new media art that are contributing to a major challenge being mounted against that traditional framework. She provides options for the new media curator by mentioning some alternate models of curatorial practice.

About the Author

Jessica Bradley is the curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Widely published, she was also the Canadian commissioner for the 48th Venice Biennale.

Sarah Cook is completing her PhD in new media curation at the University of Sunderland in the United Kingdom. Cook has curated exhibitions for the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and the Walter Phillips Gallery in Banff.

Sara Diamond is a television and new media producer/director, video artist, curator, critic, teacher, and artistic director. Diamond is currently the executive producer for Television and New Media and the artistic director of Media and Visual Arts at The Banff Centre.

Andrea Fraser is an artist, writer, and performer who lives and works in New York City and Rio de Janeiro. Her art practice is actively engaged in institutional critique and has often engaged issues regarding the sponsorship of the arts.

Bruce Grenville is the senior curator at the Vancouver Art Gallery. He has been curator at the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon and senior curator of the Edmonton Art Gallery. He is the former editor of the YYZ Books: Critical Works series and a former Toronto editor of Parachute magazine.

Anjum Katyal is editor for Seagull Books and Seagull Theatre Quarterly and a trustee of the Seagull Foundation for the Arts. Based in Calcutta, Seagull runs a publishing program in contemporary arts and culture, with an emphasis on theatre, cinema, and the fine arts.

Susan Martin is a specialist in public relations and the production of performance events in various disciplines. In 1976, she founded the seminal alternative space Some Serious Business. She is an editor of books and catalogues pertaining to art and social history.

Cuauhtémoc Medina is an art critic, curator, and historian. Since 1992, Medina has been a full-time researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas at the National University of Mexico. He was adjunct curator of the team lead by Ivo Mesquita that tried unsuccessfully to curate the XXV Bienal de São Paulo.

Ivo Mesquita is currently the director at the Museu de Arte Moderna in São Paulo. He received his BA and MA from the University of São Paulo and was the chief curator for the XXV Bienal de São Paulo (2001). Since 1984, Mesquita has been the cultural adviser for the Bienal Foundation of São Paulo.

Stella Rollig is an author, art critic, and curator based in Vienna. She taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1996 to 1998) and was senior artist in the Creative Residencies Program at The Banff Centre in 1998.

Gregory Sholette is an artist, writer, activist, curator, and the chair of the Master of Arts in Arts Administration program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Sholette’s critical writings can be found in Third Text, Afterimage, Oxford Art Journal, and the New Art Examiner.

Melanie Townsend is the curator of the Walter Phillips Gallery at The Banff Centre. She has been involved in the publication of The Edge of Everything: Reflections on Curatorial Practice as well as many other publications undertaken by the Walter Phillips Gallery and the Banff Centre Press.

Jon Tupper is the director of the Confederation Centre Art Gallery. Prior to moving to Charlottetown, Tupper was the director of the Walter Phillips Gallery and associate director of the Creative Residencies program in Media and Visual Arts at The Banff Centre.

Peter White is an independent curator and writer based in Montreal. He was an organizer and publication editor of Naming a Practice: Curatorial Strategies for the Future, a seminar on curating held in 1994 at The Banff Centre. White is a member of Hoopoe Curatorial, a collective currently organizing an interdisciplinary, multiyear India-Canada project.

Edition details

• Publisher: Banff Centre Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0920159990
• ISBN 13: 9780920159996
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 208
• Editor: Townsend Melanie