Excerpt:
BARCELONA — The study of the history of exhibitions allows us to “shuffle the deck of art history,” as Robert Rosenblum wrote in his essay for the 2000 exhibition 1900: Art at the Cross-Roads. Thanks in part to artists and scholars’ interrogation of the institutional authority of the museum, the growing importance of museum studies, and the boom in writings by and about star curators, the history of exhibitions has become an important area of study.
The study of exhibitions and the reconstruction of landmark examples can shed light on institutional histories and allow us to rethink received artistic categories, question canonical narratives, and rediscover forgotten artists. Such potential, however, has its limitations, since it depends on access to archives or eyewitnesses. Those institutions with resources preserve their records, thus reifying their own importance as subjects for study for scholars seeking documentation.
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Source:
https://hyperallergic.com/193713/a-tale-of-two-exhibitions-and-the-polit...