Why Exhibition Histories?

Abstract

This special issue of British Art Studies, titled “London, Asia, Exhibitions, Histories”, takes as its point of departure the idea that exhibitions provide an important lens through which to explore the entangled art histories of Asia and Britain. This proposition, perhaps uncontroversial in its own right, nonetheless reflects certain intellectual and methodological shifts in the discipline of art history during the past decade, most obvious among them, the expanded geography and relational perspective invoked by the coordinates “London” and “Asia”. Another is the shift in focus away from the individual artist or artwork, towards the exhibition as a meaningful object of art historical inquiry. The discipline of art history has long attended to contexts of exhibition and display, evident in the historical study of museum collections and curiosity cabinets. During the 1980s and 1990s, the New Museology spawned all manner of more critical inquiry into exhibitions, collections, practices, and ideologies, fuelled by post-Marxist and post-structural theories of representation and spectacle. The twenty-first century saw the emergence of Curatorial Studies as another subfield of sorts, one that was quickly consolidated into a professional track that has a close affinity to contemporary art. Finally, the self-described field of Bienniology, the study of international biennials, has also advanced discussions about globalization and these exhibitionary platforms, even as its contributors acknowledge a relentlessly diverse and shape-shifting field of activity. We might see all of these trajectories converging upon, and ultimately affirming and legitimizing, the intellectual investment in exhibition histories contained in this special issue of the journal.

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