Curating Under Pressure: International Perspectives on Negotiating Conflict and Upholding Integrity

Description

Curating Under Pressure breaks the silence surrounding curatorial self-censorship and shows that it is both endemic to the practice and ubiquitous. Contributors map the diverse forms such self-censorship takes and offer creative strategies for negotiating curatorial integrity. This is the first book to look at pressures to self-censor and the curatorial responses to these pressures from a wide range of international perspectives. The book offers examples of the many creative strategies that curators deploy to negotiate pressures to self-censor and gives evidence of curators’ political acumen, ethical sagacity and resilience over the long term. It also challenges the assumption that self-censorship is something to be avoided at all costs and suggests that a decision to self-censor may sometimes be politically and ethically imperative. Curating Under Pressure serves as a corrective to the assumption that censorship pressures render practitioners impotent. It demonstrates that curatorial practice under pressure offers inspiring models of agency, ingenuity and empowerment. Curating Under Pressure is a highly original and intellectually ambitious volume and as such will be of great interest to students and academics in the areas of museum studies, curatorial and gallery studies, art history, studio art and arts administration. The book will also be an essential tool for museum practitioners. Cover Half Title Series Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of figures List of plates List of contributors Introduction Acknowledgments Part 1 Understanding self-censorship 1 Rethinking the curator’s remit 2 Much ado about nothing: policing of controversial art in the UK 3 Curating contemporary global art in Doha, Qatar: anticipated “conversations,” undesirable controversies and state self-censorship 4 No names, no titles, no further explanations 5 Lady disrupted: self-censorship and the processes of feminist curating in South Africa 6 Bishan project: efforts to build a utopian community under authoritarian rule Part 2 Negotiating self-censorship 7 Navigating censorship: a case from Palestine 8 Truth or dare? Curatorial practice and artistic freedom of expression in Turkey 9 The complexity of taking curatorial risks: case studies from East Asia 10 Negotiating self-censorship in the representation of Colombian armed conflict 11 Experimental curatorship in Russia: beyond contemporary art institutions 12 From Carbon Sink to WASTE LAND: a case study in navigating controversy 13 The bigger picture: rethinking curatorial approaches to photographs of childhood 14 Smart tactics: toward an adaptive curatorial practice Index