Curating Labour. Troubles with gender and dispossession in the exhibition space: a circular movement on historical traces

Cataldo, A. (2022) Curating Labour. Troubles with gender and dispossession in the exhibition space: a circular movement on historical traces. PhD thesis, University of Reading. doi: 10.48683/1926.00116457

Abstract/Summary

Gender, class, and provenance have played a pivotal role in preventing access to the aesthetic sphere. I focus on exhibition making as a radical curatorial practice for addressing material conditions rooted in the struggle “for bread-and-butter.” In studying several exhibitory projects in Scandinavia and elsewhere in the 1960s and 70s, I examine curatorial feminist practices building spatial constructs that question how and why labour can overturn societal structures. Artists at times take the lead in exhibition making (curating) to point to otherwise undiscussed positions of power. The document facilitates novel and soft forms of curating. During the three past years, I have partially retransferred these feminist strategies often happening in small- and medium-sized institutions and whose knowledge I acquired through research into my curatorial work. Therefore, the project includes collected writings about the non-conformant body as the site of trauma, problematising curating, often co-opting representation. Art produces in more places than one, and curating rests on an exceptionality of the arts where diverse practices remain under the radar. The exhibition space still needs to be considered an active public space to overthrow mainstream norms. In the aesthetic sphere, curating works as a counter-hegemonic tool to propose new forms of living together. I argue that curating continues to produce the yet unknown and yet-to-be accepted, a fundamental motor of emancipation for a more equitable society.

Item Type	Thesis (PhD)
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/116457
Identification Number/DOI	10.48683/1926.00116457
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Arts and Communication Design > Art
Date on Title Page	September 2021
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