Curation and Exhibition
The practices of selecting, interpreting, arranging, and presenting collections to publics, and the theory and craft of making exhibitions.
Definition
Curation is the practice of caring for, researching, and interpreting collections and translating them into exhibitions and programs, while exhibition is the medium through which objects and ideas are presented to publics.
Scope
This area covers the work of curating — researching collections, developing concepts, and selecting and interpreting objects — and the design and production of exhibitions that communicate to audiences. It also encompasses the management and documentation of collections that make exhibition possible and the educational and interpretive strategies that connect displays to visitors.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- What does a curator do, and how has the role changed?
- How are objects selected, sequenced, and interpreted for an exhibition?
- How do collections management and documentation underpin display?
- How do exhibitions communicate with and educate their audiences?
Key theories
- Curating as authorship and mediation
- Obrist frames curating as a creative practice of connecting people, objects, and ideas, in which the curator acts as catalyst and mediator rather than mere caretaker, shaping how art and knowledge circulate.
- The exhibition as a medium of meaning
- The essays in Thinking About Exhibitions treat the exhibition itself as a distinct medium whose conventions of arrangement, framing, and rhetoric actively construct the meanings audiences receive.
History
Curatorship developed from the connoisseurship and collection care of early museum keepers into a specialized profession in the twentieth century. From the 1960s the rise of the independent and 'auteur' curator, exemplified by figures such as Harald Szeemann, and the growth of biennials reframed curating as a creative and discursive practice, while exhibition theory matured as a distinct field in the 1990s.
Debates
- The curator as author versus servant of the collection
- Commentators debate whether the rise of the star curator and the exhibition-as-artwork enhances cultural production or subordinates objects and scholarship to curatorial self-expression.
Key figures
- Hans Ulrich Obrist
- Bruce W. Ferguson
- David Dean
- Reesa Greenberg
Related topics
Seminal works
- obrist2014
- ferguson1996
- deanmuseum2002
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between curation and exhibition?
- Curation is the intellectual and practical work of researching, selecting, and interpreting objects, while an exhibition is the public outcome — the designed display through which those objects and ideas reach audiences.
- How has the role of the curator changed?
- It has expanded from collection keeper and connoisseur to include the independent or 'auteur' curator who conceives exhibitions as creative, discursive projects, a shift associated with the rise of biennials and contemporary art curating.