Models, modes and exhibitionary practices: from anteriority to immanence in exhibition development

Abstract

This thesis considers the problem of anteriority in art exhibitions. It is critical of the way current models of exhibitionary practice frame artworks to represent already existing concepts; to illustrate narratives that are fixed in advance of the viewer's encounter with the work. This 'anteriorisation' of meaning has a negative effect on the works' ability to affect viewers in new ways and stimulate new narratives. Current anterior models focus on origins and audiences instead of on the artwork itself. The new 'model' redresses this imbalance, shifting the focus of exhibitionary practice back to the work and its immanent, 'creative' relationship with the viewer. This study utilises a cross-disciplinary analysis of theoretical literature and recent exhibitionary practice in case study form. This methodology correlates theory from diverse fields, including anthropology, business studies, philosophy and visual culture studies with the aim of creating a flexible, non-dictative and multivalent theoretical 'model' for exhibitionary practice. The case study, of the fundamental practice by artists' collective et al., New Zealand's project for the 2005 Venice Biennale, both demonstrates how this new kind of 'model' can work in practice and inspires and shapes the 'model'. This thesis concludes that artworks are live, immanent and active and that to maximise their potential, artworkers should not frame and limit the work (and their own practice) with the anterior narratives of art history or the 'new museology', but with the immanent qualities of the work itself. The thesis therefore makes a significant contribution to museum studies by proposing a more theorised understanding of exhibitionary practice in relation to contemporary art which provides a necessary counter-argument to the audience-focussed emphasis of much current scholarship. Most importantly, the study explores a different kind of modelling of practice, opening the possibility of alternative methodologies for the study of exhibitions. It offers new thinking on the relationship of theory to exhibitionary practice that is able to legitimise what is already operating in the field without simultaneously shifting the vital immanence of this practice into a static anterior model.