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Inhisessay"DeathoftheAuthor,"Barthespointedoutthat'traditionally"'bookand

author standautomatica§on a single line dividedinto a'before'andan'after,"'while

,,in complete contrast, the modern'scriptor' is born simultaneouslywith the text'''

There isno othertimethanthatofthe enunciationandeverytextis eternallywritten

'here'and'now."" Respondingto Barthes'claim' Michel Foucault outlinedthe notion

ofthe,,author,sfunction" inanessayentitled"whatls anAuthor?"andarguedthatit

results from a complex operation whose purpose is to construct the rational

entiltwe call an aithor.'..Nrvertheless,these aspects of anindivi.dual,which

wedesignateasanauthor(orwhichcompriseanindividualasanauthor),areproi ections, in terms always more or less pqtcholo§cal' of our way ofhandling

iexts . . ' ln addition, all these operations vaty according to the period and the

form of dbcourse concerned'3

Seenfromtheperspectiveoftheaftworld,itwaspreciselyinthisperiodthattheauthorial role ofthe curator was being discussed' The quesdon' however' was not so

muchwhetherthecurator-as-authorwasorshouldbe..dead,,,butwhetheronecan

speak ofa curator as author at all in relation to the making ofan exhibition'

FollowingBarthesandFoucaultandtheirdefinitionoftheauthoras..acu]turalprocessspecifictoaperiodintime,"itcanbearguedthatthe"culturalprocess"called .,curating,, with its specific agent, the "curator," begins taking shape at the

same time. Before worldwar II, the organization of exhibitions was the task ofwhat

wascalledthe..museumcurator,,,withthetitle,simplicationsofattachmenttoastable institution and attention to building up and caring for a permanent collec-

tion. That role, aS the etymological roots of curare ot,,taking care,, imply, was mainly

relatedtotheinterpretadonofartandthepreservationofaftworks.alnthedecades

after World War II, there was a shift from this qpe of "museum curator" toward

what would eventua§be ca]led an..exhibition auteur,,, whichis to say, the role of

the "curator" as we understand it today's

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This shift and the debate about what a ..curator,,

is and does only reallybegan in thenineteen-sixties. Acting no longer as "an Apo,inairean prophet,, but as a ..scholareducated through the acquaintance with artists, museums, and universities,,, a newflgure emerged who was not necessarily an art historian, but was purrioru,. uuo,racontemporary art practices and traveled to meet anists and ùsit exhibitions, anintelrectuar who made varue judgments based on his or her own e4perience andraste'6 when this new figure was calred upon to organize an exhibition, he or shewould invite artists coherenrtyfollowinghis or her specific critical view as informedby a theme or issue' The exhibitions organized byseth sr"s.r"rb, ir.i Lippard,and Harald szeemann, among others, contributed to the general overhaur oftheway exhibitions were made.7 And as a result of such efforts, new definitions of thisprofessionar figure that operated particurarry in the contemporary art fierd wereproposed.s Among them, one of the most influential was szeemann,s ,,exhibition

maker," a formura with which he started defining hims erf inry6g,when he quit hisjob at the Kunsthalle Bern and began making exhibitions on a freelance basis.s rhedefinition of this new role of curato, und tù resurting discoulse of cuiatoriar au_thorship arguably ran paraler to the estabrishment of new forms of colraborationbetween artists and exhibition makers. Indeed it was in the rate nineteen_sixtiesthat the rise of what an historian Bruce Altshurer calls .the curator as creator,,enabled the inscription of "subvertingthe exhibition format,, as a task on the agendaof exhibition organizers.'o It was at that time that critical reflection upon the rela_tionship between the aturork and the exhibitiorearlv avant-garde movements had been -r,",, *tuffi #ffilT-r::LH""':;curatoriar work." As a resurt, in the first harfofthe seventies, a new epistemorogicarmoder of thematic exhibitions emerged that proposed a nonrinear organization ofthe exhibition discourse. It offered itself as a coanthologicalorganizationbymovementrr"o-::'.?;Tl"tffi:.1#::::::we wilr see, would eventua[y largely replace it with regard ao ,rr. orgu.riration oflarge-scale perennial exhibitions rike biennials, which would becomJincteasingryimportant pratforms for curating. The attention to the contemporary art scene andthe philosophy of "curating the new', promoted through such biennials fostered achange in a*itude regarding the organization of exhibiìions *;;;;;;ilconrri_butedto thegrowingimportance ofthe curator's position. overdme, curators,workthus proved to be less about "caring for" in the s.rr. ofp."r.rving art than about"discovering" resser-known aftists, movements, and scenes, a veritable professionshaped by master courses, thematic symposia, and conferences.,, Their role in the

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Qustions of Autho6hip in Biennial CuratingFederie Martini and yrtioria Martini

constmction of the exhibition as an authored object also became more and more

defined over time, so much so that by 1998 an exhibition installation conceived bycurator Henri Langlois at the Musée du Cinéma in Paris was defined as an "oeuwed'esprit" in a court of law and thus deemed akin to the work of an "author" in otherdomains, earning it the protection of French copyright law.'3 If the curator in ourpresent dayhas become, unquestionably, an "author," it makes sense to look back at

the history and development that led up to this.

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torial work may also explain the growing

disquiet against the "Venice Biennial"

attitude towards exhibition-making inthe same decade and, with it, the critical

examination of its multisite structure. In

ry66 critic Bruno Alfieri commented thatthe Venice Biennial had failed to appoint someone who was clearly "in charge ofthe cultural outset" of the exhibition.'a In contemporary terms, his question wouldsound like this: who is curating the Venice Biennial? The fact is that even up until the

mid-sixies the Venice Biennial-widely considered to be the oldest of the perennial

exhibitions-was notorganizedbya"curator,"butinsteadbycommittees ofofEcers

and art history professors, or what was collectively called a "biennial council."'s Ac-

cordingly, the Venice Biennial,like the other major large-scale perennial exhibitionof that time, Documenta, was occupied with a focus on "re-writing history."'6 Since

1948, the Venice Biennial had tackled the task offilling in the historic gaps caused by

twenty years of Fascist dictatorship.'z Documenta, on the other hand, was founded

in 1955 with the aim of "producing history" in the particular context of postwar Ger-

many,whichwasburdenedwiththe legacyofNazism.'8Itwas preciselyinthis period

and in this context that Alfieri askedwho was "in charge ofthe cultural outset" ofbi-ennials, especiallytheVenetianone.And, as his queryimplied, don't such large-scale

international exhibitions need a "cultural signature," or, in otherwords, an author?'e

This issue may sound outdated today, when nearly a dozen curatorial study pro-

grams and over zoo biennials are well established around the world and when bien-

nials in particular have positioned themselves as a third institution competingwith

203

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TheBisnhlReds

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20r

universities and museums in the writing of contemporary art history and are evenproving to be a cruciardebatingground with rega.d to cu.ato.ral straÉgies.,o rhere_fore, when retracing the curatorial history off,rge-scale exhibitions, we also haveto question the authorial position that curarors have taken in the writing ofbothan history and the curatorial history ofbiennials, and wonder about when, throughwhat debates, and howthose authors became visible.

In regard to this, the venice Biennial occupies a pecuriar position, being the onlyperennial show characterized,by a "multicell,, stnrcture due to the disseminationof the exhibition in multiple national pavilions.,,As early as 196g, the national rep_resentation system adopted in venice was already considered unproJuctive andquestionabre. Much debate thus deveroped around the idea or"rorirrrirg nationarpavilions and every "preconstituted space,, in favor of .,contingent structures, builtupon the artist,s requestf,] . . . spaces devoted to aesthetic even-ts, a ,ring, where freeaction is possible,beyond anyspatiar andtemporal bond,Dz Nonetheless, duringtheseventies the problem ofthe murticelr ,,*.aur. *u, panially overcome thanks to athematic approach that was framed by several international conferences attendedbythe representatives ofthe various national pavilions.

As a consequence ofthe debates about the pavilion structure ofthe venice Biennial,the first thematic biennial rook prace in tgT6,bringing together both the parazzodelle Esposizioni and alr national pav,ions around the theme of Ambiente, parteci_pazione, strutture curturari (Envtronment, participation, curturar structures). underthe coordination of arristic directorvitto.io c..soni, *;";'*d;rr'r"*"r" or_ganized by individual curators. Following on this path, the space ofthe r97g VeniceBiennialwasagainunifiedbyacommonthematicdenominato

r,Dailanaturaall,arte,dall'arte a'a natura (From Nature to Art, from Art to Nature), though it was orga_nized bytwo curatorial teams. presented as a..research fierdproposed bya collectiveof internationar critics," the open theme offered a means of creating a space for freeand critical analysis, and was perceived as a way to contrast with the art market sys_tem'': somehow the fragmented spatial structure that the thematic upp.*.h *u,trying to sorve was translated into a murtiprication of curatoriar views. Eir since, aunifting theme has been a reitmotif in contemporary an biennials, which are scat_tered throughout the urban space. And while biennials are thus, as a resurt, guidedby an apparentlyuniversal or colrective question/subject to which they are meant torespond' for which they are to provide a background, or about *rri"t tir"f u.. *.urra

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Questiore of AuthoEhip in &ennial CuEtingFederi@ Martini and Vitbde Martini

to create debate, curatorial teamwork (that is, collective curating) within biennials,though it does occur occasionally, is far from the norm.

IiltBttililtillf was at the Venice Biennial and at rivalperennial exhibitions like Documenta

that the first theme-based group shows

were organized by the new figure ofthecurator, who was now explicitly in charge

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of the show.+ As early as 1968, on the occasion of Documenta 4, Arnold Bode waslisted in the catalogue as being responsible for "Exhibition direction" (Ausstellungs-leitung) rather than general direction (Leitung). The Documenta council's reori-entation around the exhibition concept, which was eventually emphasized by the"exhibition maker" attitude that szeemann cultivated in the creation of the show'sfifth edition int97z, made Documenta the first large-scale exhibition that, hisrori-cally, maybe recorded as the work of a single curator.,s

In this context, Szeemann's "exhibition maker,, approach met the large-scaleperennial exhibition's quest for an author in the sixties, so the practice of a

"council" deciding on the artistic fate of the exhibition came to an end. Arguably,then, the question ofthe authorship ofbiennials is rooted in the crisis ofthe historic-informational model'6 of the perennial exhibition itself.

Following internal organizational problems during the 1968 edition of Documenra,Szeemann was appointed "Secretary General" and charged with sole responsibilityfor the exhibition.'7 As art historian Hans-Joachim Mùller has pointed out, besidesthe "coordinating" connotation of his appointment, the term used made explicitreference to the political role of the uN's secretary General. szeemann didn't aimto "democratize" the making of the Documenta, however; he made this clear whendescribing himself as "a secretary General with the widest range of authority and ateam of5-7 executors in a d5 working group, so no huge commissions, no votes, noplaying games with the names of the artists, but seven people who are responsibleand reachthe f,nal decisions, togetherwiththe secretarygeneral.,',8

205

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Nevertheless, within this "authoritarian" structure rMe can see the beginning ofnew

forms of collaborative curating that would come of age more ful1y at the end of the

eighties. The collaborative stmcture outlinedbyszeemannforDocumentaS seemsto

have anticipated the trend ofhaving a central curator and a network ofcollaborators'

Along with outlining the curator's vision of the art world, biennials and their large-

scale exhibition counterparts have thus taken on the roie of a laboratory for cura-

torial practice, thereby providing a contelt for investigating issues of authorship

in contemporary an production. It is perhaps no coincidence that throughout the

eighties the curator's role gained increasing visibility" while the dissemination of

postmodern theories made the debate around the "death of the author" a common

topic of discussìon in university circles.:o In relation to precisely this, the French

philosopherJean-FranqoisLyotardwroteintgTgabollttheendof..metanarra-tives,, and, as a consequence, the end oftheir "great heroes.":' In the invitation letter

that curator Rudi Fuchs sent out to artists asked to participate in Documenta 7 in

rggz we find a similar wording, although the subtext animating Fuchs's intention is

somehow opposite to Lyotard's hypothesis about the loss of "narrative functors'"

subtitled ,,A Story" Documenta 7 Seems, in fact, to merge a subjective curatorial

proposalwith othervoices. However, as we readin the letter, the overalÌ projectwas

based on an individual authorial position, for it was Fuchs's identification and defl-

nition ofhis choice of contemporaryissuethatunequivocallydeterminedthe theme

and approach ofthat edition ofDocumenta:

I seethis exhibition as a stoty, andhaye even thought abowt usingthiswordin

thetitte...Fornle,however,thatsuggestssomethingyeqlprecise:rtrstajour-

nqt,thenanaccount ofit.. .The art of owr conteln()ora?'ieshesnotyet ddefined

history. It stqrted at some time and Somewhere: the depart |sic) from the clas-

sical tradition, the path toward the new! This departure mednt learingbehind

the ntagnificent, sharedlanguage of the classicatperiod. Etteryone now speaks

the dialect of their own tradition-thqt speak of their home, their history.3'

Later on in the same letter, Fuchs aligns the collaboration with Documenta 7's "Ar-

tistic Board"33 with the collapse of classical unity and grand narratives that led, in

Lyotard,s terms, to a ,'cloud of narratives." Behind the comprehensive backdrop

of his claim (,.Everyone now speaks the dialect of their tradition . . . their history"),

it is not at all clear who is speaking for whom: Are the curators speaking for the

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Questiore oI AuthoEhip in Biennial CuretingFede,i€ Martihi and yittoria Martini

artists? or are the works speaking for the artists or for the curators? This ambiguityis emphasized by Fuchs's opening statement, in which he remarks that an exhibi-tion's concept (or story) can reallybe ..formulated,, only in the real space, .luhen theworks are actuallythere." still, this idea of cowriting the exhibition in collaborationwith the Artistic Board and rhe aftists is in fact contradicted by his use of the firstperson in the letter ("I see this exhibition as a story,,) and by his decision to buildwalls in the previously wall-ress Museum Fridericianum, which red to a directedpath for the viewing ofa kind ofauthored narrative. Thus, though partry suggestinga collective authorial position in his text, Fuchs,s inscriptions in the exhibitionspace bore a strong individual-author orientation: ,,we practice this wonderfulcraft, we construct an exhibition after having made rooms for this exhibition. In themeantime, artists attempt to do their best, as it should be.,,y

In Jan Hoet's r99z Documenta, this subjective attitude was pushed even funher. Thecuratorial team working with Hoet,s which he described as an ensembre of ,.felrowvoyagers of discoveryand antennae,"was not..conceived as a democratic forum.,,36In a letter in which he exprains his curatoriar position with regard to Documenra 9,Hoet claimed not to have a specific exhibition concept (,,I onlybuilt a structure thatsuggests a concept,,):

The ninth Documenta is a Documenta of places; its topography is the sup_porting, load-bearing framework. But it is q.rso a Documenn if the artists,because thqt are the ones that create the spaces within this framework . . . MyD ocumenta sets out solely from the artists, from their work.zz

Again, the apparent multiauthor structure ofthe exhibition is deniedbythe facts.The framework within which Hoet selected the arrists and the exhibition spacesmay have been inspired by the artists and the curatorial team, but the final, subjec-tive choice was made by Hoet himself. Thus throughour the history of exhibition-making, one can identi$r two opposite trends: on the one hand, there have beenperennial exhibitions that foregrounded the creation ofcuratorial one-man shows,like Hoet's Documenta, in which an individuar curator positions him- or herself asa prominent figure; on the other hand, bienniars and other large-scale exhibitionshave also actively contributed to the dissemination ofcollaborative curating.

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THI proliferation of contemporary arr biennials in thenineries has contributed to a large degree to the ad_dressing ofquestions concerning recent changes aboutauthorship in cwatorial pracrice. A quite new form ofcooperation that came of age with biennials is that ofthe correspondent, that is, the curator/art expert basedin a ciry/node ofthe international art scene that offersadvice onthe selection of artists andgr.rides the biennialcurator in his or her visit/discovery of local artists and

200

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institutions. First made visible in the exhibition strucrure of Jean-Hubert Martin,sMagiciens de la teme (rg8g), this type of correspondent acts as an informant in rhework of "translation,"interfacinghis orherviewofthe,,local scene,s language,,withttrat ofthe curator. The fact is that from the seventies through the eighties the thematicorientationofcontemporaryanbiennials had oftentaken onthefeatu_res ofamono_Iithic narrative distributed in several spaces, a kind ofgesamtkunstwerk that reliedon artists'works as a means ofexpressingthe curator,s vision.:8In 1997this tendency,as well as the notion ofthe curator as author, was brought into question by okwuiEnwezor, who was artistic director ofthe second Johannesburg Biennial that year:

There is a tendenq) emong curators and. artistic directors to take the ord moderof seeingthemselves as authors, soto speak.Inorder to movebqtondthishabit,in which we do not ailow ideas and. processes to be compricated, we haye chosento make Johannesburg into a dffirent kind of forum. r decided to iwite cura_tors from different parts of the worrd., and. my onry restrictionfor them wasthat it would not be nationally based. r want them to go bq,ondiherr own ter_ritorial proclivity.zs still, the possibitity of a truly cottectiu,e curatorial processis not merely a matter of invorving more than one person, as sweral bienni-als projects showed in the nineties, but of actuatty allowingfor what could becalled multiple authorship among curators to emerge.4o

In this regard, although it was the mandate of a singurar curator, catherine David,sDocumenta ro arguably resurted in a far more prural exercise than other projectsthat were supposedly more collaborative. putting forward her critical analysis ofDocumenra, and positioning her project within the questioning of rarge-scale exhi_bitions and contemporary curture, David clearrystatedher temporal 1ùt.ope.sp"c-tive) and spatial (parcours, Limits, Borders) vision. within this visible frame, artists

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Questions ot Autho6hip in Biennial curatingFedsie Martini and Vittoria Martini

were invited to debate and interact with a Documenta that was defined as "a tlpe oflaboratory" a place for "experiment, for conflict, for controversy."4l

Similarly, for Documenta u Enwezor showed a deep concern for the process that

produces the working framework that leads to the realization of an exhibition. He

workedwith a curatorial team to shape an exhibitionthatwas intendedto be a "con-

stellation of ideas," in order to connect "the formality of the exhibition" with "theidea of communities of discourse."€ In Enwezor's view, contemporary art curators

belong to a transnational community of discowse and share a common research

field that aims at "[making] room for new forms of knowledge."

Enwezor's approach to the group show's structure stressed discursive production,

as he explained in the exhibition statement:

The basic concept of Documenta n is based on the formwlation of a series offiite

plutforms-public discussions, conferences, workshops, books, film and video

programs-that try to describe the present location of culture and its inter-

faces with other global systems of knowledge.a

The multiplicityofthe contemporarycultural scenewas not resolvedherevia amul-

tiplication ofviews, but via a change ofparadigm. The concept underlying the exhibi-

tionwas not ameretheme,but aresearchtoolthathelpedtobuild aplural discourse.

In a different fashion, Achille Bonito Oliva curated the 1993 Venice Biennial

erfiitledl Punti cardinali dell'arte (The Cardinal Points ofAn) in a similar attempt to

undermine thewaythebigpicture ofcontemporaryart is producedwithinbiennials.

Bonito Oliva invited several curators to work on fifteen exhibitions and suspended

the system of national representation. This allowed the German Pavilion, for exam-

ple, to present the work ofboth a German artist and a Korean-born one. According

to the "rules of the game" establishedbythe Biennial's artistic director, the uniffingtheme became a device for producing multiplicity. Ventriloquist and polyphonic,

Bonito Oliva's Biennial interpreted the perennial show as a tool for orienting-anddisorienting-the audience through contemporary cultural production.

Ten years later, Francesco Bonami's 2oo3 Venice Biennial also intervened in this

trendbymakingthepluralityofthe curatorialteamthemainconceptofhisexhibition

209

'IlEBigmialRds

2r0

project.4EntitledDreamsandConfiicts:TheDictatorshipoftheVirwer,thefiftiethVenice Biennial was articulated as an ensemble ofgroup shows, each conceived by

a different curator and installed, one show after another, in the Arsenale. As Daniel

Birnbaum, who'was one of the participating curators and later went on to become

directorofthebiennial,pointedout,..[Bonami,sBiennial]wasaheterogeneousevent,andinawaythebiennaletoputanendtothebiennaleasanexperimentalform. It tried to exhaust all the possibilities at once, and pushed the plurality as far

as possib1e.,,45 Bonami's multiplication of the individual curatorial view enabled the

institutionalization of multiple authorship within the Venice Biennial' In selecting

eleven curators, Bonami criticized the mechanism of the Venice Biennial that, after

the experienc es of Aperto'scuratorial teams in the nineteen-eighties, had returned

to an individual curatorial stnrcture during the nineties. In his biennial, the histori-

cal crisis ofthe great exhibitionmodel andoftheVenetian institution afterfour con-

secutiveyears of szeemann's direction (he curatedthe 1999 andzoor editions) came

together with claims about the crisis ofthe curator as auteur- Therefore, taking the

fragmentation of contemporary times as a starting point, Bonami emphasized the

obsolescence of individual curatorial vision to the advantage of a multiple spatial

organization, whereby the Biennial was presented as "an exhibition of several cura-

tors' exhibitions" and not as a collective exhibition project'

In a conversation with Bonami, Igot zabel questioned the "curator's power posi-

tion,, and highlighted his or her role in making choices and establishing the criteria

of selecdon.{ These choices and selection criteria, as seen before, are actually the

very places in which the authorial position ofthe curator is constructed, as Stéph-

anie Moisdon and Hans Ulrich Obrist also showed lnthe zooT Lyon Biennial' A

..game attitude" resonated in their biennial, where the biennial invitation system

was turned into a visible exhibition concept. In biennials, curators invite artists to

exhibit; in Moisdon and obrist's biennial, curators invite other curators to show

their curatorial vision, thereby delegating the choice of a large part ofthe artworks

in the exhibition to others. Entitled The History of a Decade That Has Not Yet Been

Named,it involved forry-seven curators and art critics, all of them participants in a

historical and geographical game aiming at defining a list of the artists who best rep-

resented the first decade of the fiventy-first century. As Moisdon and Obrist wrote in

the catalogue,..The structure [ofthe LyonBiennial,s] gameprovidesbothathinking

space to think over the notion of the collective at the turn ofthis new century, as well

as a medium to produce crossings and potential histories."aT The selection system

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Questions o{ AuthoEhip in Biennial CuEtingFederi€ Martini and Mttoria Martini

typical of biennials is here openly linked with the task of writing an history and the

process leading to this history is exhibited at the same level as the artworks.

One of the aims of the zoog International Istanbul Biennial, organized by the

curatorial collective What, How and forWhom (WHW), was to criticize this tradi-

tional biennial format that had been exposed by the zooT Lyon Biennial.48 WHW

aimed at "giving the public some form of 'agency,' [and] making choices that would

boost their capacity for action" in opposition to the system of spectacle that makes

perennial shows "high-end branding tools for promoting tourism in metropolitan

cities."4e To do this, WHW made a single exhibition that put its finger on some of

the expectations and implications ofcollective curating.so In a footnote to their text,

they summed up their role as a collective of individuals curating together:

Curating the lstqnbwl Biennial is grauely comrylicated by the fact that it has

no secure bwdget to fall back on, making it a dwiant lxybrid. The situution b

fwrther complicatedbythefactthatWllllVis a collective offour curators,butit

does not produce for four: instead offour biennials, it produces only one. Still,

WINV eats and generally conswmes for four persons, and wen more . . . This

fact presents an additional finqncial burden to be taken into account.s'

In the backdrop of WHW's analysis, we can see that though always developed on a

collaborative basis-involving selection committees, consultants, and dialogues

with other actors in the art world along with the artists and the audience-biennial

curating is often forced to be perceived, at least in name, as individwalwork.

lltfltlll a chapter devoted to "quickness" in his Six Memos

for the Next Millennium,Italo Calvino compared the dif-

ference between the nineteenth-century novel's speed

and that of the twentieth-century avant-garde novel

with the difference between horsepower and the tech-

nologically advanced velocity of the car. As Calvino

implies, and as the international avant-garde proved earlierinthetwentieth century

each epoch needs to find new formats and writing devices in order to account for

its revolutions, traumas, and changing realities. The task of curating today should

ilil ilolll m

TheBiennialR€der

be no different. But what type ofcurating and what kind ofcurator are needed? AsGianni Vattimo puts it, our epoch may be one of ,,weak thought,,-a moment with apluraliry of relative truths rather than a single absolute truth. curating in such a timemight, then, have to respond and give fom, to such a reality by inventing a way ofthinking that undermines the notion of sure and indisputable statements, offeringinstead a multiplicity of truths that enable the acceptance of different viewpointsand imposing none of them as absolute.

In order to establish the possibility for actual coauthorship, however, there is nopoint inhidingthe subjective nature ofcuratorial processesbehind objective claims.one interesting trend developed by a few rwenty-first-century biennials is the re-flection on how these individual views become intersubjective. As Barthes remindsus, "there is no other time than that of the enunciation and every text is eternallywritten 'here' and 'now."'And it is precisely in its ability to show a narrow, criticalimage of a specific time that the biennial's interest lies. This global picture of con-temporary art and culture wili be more productive the more it clearly assumes andbrings into question the relativity ofindividual curatorial visions. The notion ofthesingular, unequivocal curator as "author" seems to be in tension with that possibil-iry so as ourepochunfolds before us, newpossibilities and definitions forthe authorand the exhibition he or she produces may have to be found. o

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rcfortheauthor

Questions of Autho6hip in Bisnial CuratingFederie Martini ard Ynbria Martinì

This essay ws submitted in responseto the 2009 Bergen Bienniat Conference's "Call lor Biennial Knowledge."

I Roland Barthes' "Death of theAuthor" w6 publlshed in 1968 andtmnslated into English in 1977, whileMichel Fouault's "What ls an Author?"w6 published in 1 969 and tmnslatedinto English in 1979.

2 Roland Barthes, "Death of theAuthor," in idem, lmage, Musiq Text,tEns. and ed. Stephen Heath (London,I 977), p. 145.

3 Michel FouÉult, "What ls anAuthor?" in idem, Language, Coun-terMemory, PÉctlce ed, Donald F.Bouchard, tEns. Donald F. Bouchrdad Sherry Simon (tthae [NY], 1979),p.127.

4 See David Levi StEusq "TheBi6 of the World: Cuating afterSzeemann & Hopps," in Steven Randed Heather Kouris (eds.), CautionaryTales: CritiÀl Cu€tmg (Rotterdam,2007).

5 An early critique of the cura-tor 6 author is included in DouglasCdmp's "The Art of Exhibition" (in hisOn the Museum's Runs [Cambridge(MA), 19931), which locuses on RudiFuchs's Documenta 7 (1 982).

6 The need to "make contempo-Ery art exhibitions in a critical way,"wites Giorgio De l\rarchis, results fromthe Numption thatcritique isthe mostpoductive way to represent conlem-poEry artistic research. Under thesecircumstances, contempoEry realityslads to provide themes that becomemodes of operation forexhibitions; seeDe Marchis, "Mostre e attività cri'tic4"Metro: An lnternational Review of Con-tenponry Art 13 (1968).

7 Between 1969 and 1973, LucyLippard organized several "num-bqed" shows, the fist being Number7 al the Paula Cooper Gallery in NewYork (1969). On this occasion, shepcitioned herself not 6 the exhibi-lim's cuEtor, but 6 "a compiler." The$bsequent shows were 552087 (Se-dte, 1 969) and 955,OOO (Vancouver,1970). Just like contempomry artists'pre{ice in those years, all ol theseSws were "scattered" and "fmg-rented." Like conceptual artists of theday, she also worked with instructionsand prcduced seveml books, See LucyLippard, "Cunting by Numbere," in'ttrdmark Exhibitions," special issue,Tale hpers, no.12(Fall 2009), and theqhibition-s-book prcjects ol 1969.

From 1964 to 1966, Seth SiegelaubEn his own gallery in New York, SethSiegelaub ContempoEry Art. CollabGrating with Conceptual artists such asRobert Barry, Dougl6 Huebler, Jo-seph Kosuth, and Lawrence Weiner,he cuEted seveml groundbreakingexhibitions and experimented withdifferent formats, including interuen-tions in the public space and books, Hecuruled Xercxbook (1 968) and Janu-ary 5-31, 1969 (1969), "publication/exhibitions" editorial prc.,ects for whichSiegelaub intermixed seveEl artists'interventions, "but lwhichl were effec-tively his artists'books," See CharlesGreen, Ihe Thid Hand: Collaborationin Art from Conceptualism to Postmodernism (Minneapolis, 2000), p. LSince his death, HaEld Szeemann'scuratorial work hs been discussed inseveEl publications, including TobiaBezzola and HaEld Szeemann, HffildSzeemann: with by thrcugh because to-wards despite: Catalogue of Ail Exhibi-tions, 1957-2005 (Zurich, 2007), andFlorence Derieux, Harutd Szeemann:lndividual Methodology (Zutich, 2007).

8 BruceAltshulelfheAwt-Gardein Exhibition: New Art in the 21th Cen-tury (New York, 1 994).

9 See Hans-Ulrich Obrist, "Mindover Matter," in idem,A Bief HistoryofCunting (Zutich,2009), pp. 80-1 00.

10 SeeAltshuler 1994 (see note 8),

11 ln cuEtor Paul O'Neill's words,a "cuetorial turn" took place in thesixties, when "the primary discourseabout art-in-exhibition began to turnaway from forms o, critique of theartwork as an autonomous object ofstudy/critique towards a form of cu-ratorial criticism, in which the spaceof exhibition w6 given critical prece-dence over that of the object of art."O'Neill, "The Curatorial Turn: FromPmctice to Discourse," in Judith Ruggand Michele Sedgwick (eds,), /ssues nCunting Contemporary Art and Performarce (Bristol and Chi€go, 2007), pp.13-14.This h6also been reprinted inthe presentvolume,

12 The tirst one in Europe openedin 1987, at the Magtrin d'Art Contem-pomin, Grenoble. lt w6 preceded bythe Whitney lndependent Studio Pro-gEm, which officially opened in NewYork between 1967 and 1 968.

13 Nathalie Heinich and MichaelFollak "Frcm Museum CuEtorto Exhibi-tion Auteur; lruenting a Single Position,"in ReuGreenberg, BrueW furguson,ild Smdy Nairne (ed s.), Thinking aboutAhlbtiors (London, 1 996), p. 60.

14 Bruno Alfieri, "Editorial," MetrciAn lntenational Review of Contempo-raryAft 12(1966),p.5.

15 tbid.

16 This is demonstEted by thenumber of exhibitions about major arthistoriGl movements and artists of thel6t forty years thatwere organized be-tween the end of the nineteen-Iortiesand the mid nineteen-fifties in Veniceand K6sel. Between 1 948 and 1 956,the Venice Biennial dedicated groupand solo shows to such historical artis-tic movements 6 lmpressionism, Pit-tura Metalisica, Fauvism, Cubism, DerBlaue Reiter, Die Briicke, and De Sti.jl.Many of these historiÉl trends werealso presented in the fi6t Documentain 1955.

17 Wth its loundation in 1895,the Venice Biennial helped to form anational vision of contemponry art ina freshly unified ltaly, while also aim-ing to position Venetian artists in abroader national and international con-text. From the beginning, 6 historianMarla Stone h6 highlighted, interna-tional artists outnumbered the ltalianparticipants. lhis trend ws gEdu-ally reversed from 1 927 to 1 934, whenFascism fist infiltmted the administm-tive structure of the Venice Biennial,eventually reducing the internationalpresence on the selection committeeand reshaping the Biennial into a "na-tional culture center," See MarlaStone,The Patron State: Culture & Politics inFasc6tfta/y(Princeton [NJ], 1 998), pp.32-43, 200-202. Sections devoled toliterature, cinema, and theater weregEdually added to the fine arts exhibi-tion, with the latter being incre*inglyinfluenced by national contests aimedat building Fmcist iconography. ln1934, Hitler's visit to the German pa-vilion wtr emblematic of the politicalbackdrop affecting the Venice Bien-nial under Fscism and World War ll,The Golden Lion awarded to RobertRauschenberg in 1964 symbolicallyended the period of historic recoverybegun in 1 948, and marked a shift to-wards the new thematic group showformat discussed in this essay.

18 Walter Gmsskamp, "For Exam-ple, Documenta, or, How ls Art HistoryProduced?" in Greenberg, Ferguson,and Nairne 1996 (see note 13), pp.48-56. The fi6t edition of Documentaoccurred in 1955 and w6 intendedto reconnect and reconcile Germanpublic life with international modernityafterthe end of Nai dictatorehiÈ.

,9 Alfieri 1 966 (see note I 4), p, 5.

il0rEs

nx

-

lheBisnialR€der

il0rts 20 See Charles W Haxthausen

Gd.\. The Two Ad Histories: The Mu-

.puÀ and the UnlYersity (New Haven,

2oO2). Jean-Marc Poinsot has high-

lighted the "writing hislory" vocation

of conlemPorary art museum group

shows durinq the nineteen-eighties;see Pornsot,'ilarge-Scale Exhibiiions,"

in Greenberg, Ferguson. and Nairne

1996 (see note 1 3), PP 41-47

21 Lawrence Alloway, The Venice

Biennale 1895-1968: From Salon to

coldfÉh Bowl (Greenwrch, 1968)' P

136. ln 1907, the Biennial's General

Secretary, Antonio F@deletto' proposed

hosting foreign artists indedicated na-

tional pavilions to be constructed wlthln

the enclosure o{ the Giardini

22 See "Proposte Per la Biennale'

una tavola rotonda, un progetto, MeL

ro: An lntenational Review of Contem-porary Aft 1 5 (1 968), P. 23.

23 See "Viaggio nella natura

dell'arte." ìn 878 (Venice, 1978), p'

1. In 1963. René Berger, director oI

Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arls, Lau-

sanne, and a member of international

Juries of the Venice Biennial, inau-

ourated the {irst Salon international

àes galeries-pilotes. which was also

inspired by lhe will to overcome tne

limits of the nalional represenlatlon

svstem in Venice see Yves Aupetitalot

and Catherine Lepdor (eds ), /ns/de fhe

Slxtiesr qP / 23 Le Salon international

des oaléiies-plotes à Lausanne 1963

I96ò, i970 (Lausanne, 2002)

Thelrend can bealso seen in the

lew perennial exhrbitions oi lhe time'

like ihe Sào Paulo and Paris biennials,

but ìs most visible by examining the

examole of Venice On the wave o[ the

1968 Drotests, the exhibition armed

at beinq more problematic landl far

less miseoloqical" (see the generaì

caìalooue oltnie 1 970 Venice Biennial)

ThetiÀtexampleof thistrend rnVenice

was Rrcerca e progettuione: Proposteper un'eslosizione slerimentale

Ì1 970). Mor" "or.,tted

to the Presentand aiminq to have the audlence

actively interact with'lhe lhemes it

exolored, Ricerca e prcgettazlone was

the tirst exhibition ir the history of

the Venice Biennial that explored the

visitors'role in the exhibilion prcjec'l'

Oroanized accordrng to dilferent

th;atic quidelines. the exhibition also

attemotei to overcome disciplinary

separations withrn the Venice Blennial

25 See lvlichael Glasmeier and

Karin Stenqel (eds ), A rchive in Motion:

50 Years ò'f Documenla 1955-2005(Gòttingen, 2005).

26 As earlY as 1957, in a sympo-

sium on the Venice Biennial, art his-

torian Sergio Bettini argued that the

Venice Biennial's audience was not

looking merely for lnformation when

visi'tino oerennial exhibilions, but also

tor -c-uliural orientation'l see Bettini.

Atti del convegno di studio sulla Bien-

nale Venezia Ca' Loredan, 13 ottobre

1957(Venice,1957) p 31 ìnthiscon-text, oerennial exhibitions are no longer

meant to present exhauslive surueys ot

oast trends or the contemporary scene'

as accordinq to the traditional historic-informatronàl model lnstead, blennrals are now expected to make critical

statements that open up new debates

and overall readings o'f contempoErycuttural production.

27 Hans-Joachim MÙller, Harald

Szeemann: Exhibition Maker (Ontildern, 2006), PP 38-39,

28 lbìd.,P 157

N See Yves Michaud, L:Attiste et/es commrcsalresr Quatre essarc no'Das sur lah conlem7orain mais sut

'ceux qui sen occupent (Nimes, 1 989)'

30 See Andrea HuYssen, "MaP-

oino the Postmodern," in Joseph Pi.tai6ti and Linda Hutcheon (eds.) A

Postmodern Reader (Albany, 1 993), p

141 , and Shetrie lrurn. 'Appropriation

and Authorshrp in Contemporary Art,

British Journal of Aesthetlcs 45, no 2(April 2005), P, 1 24

31 ln this fmhion, the French Phi-losopher Jean-FBnqois Lyotard wrote ln

1 97b about lhe end ot "metanarratives

and resolved that the narrative function

w6 losing its functors, its great hero,

ils qreat dangers. its great vovages its

qreàt goal. lt w6 being dispersed in

clouds of rarmtive language elements-naretive, but also denotalive, prescrip-'tive, descriPtive, and so on

g2 Rudi Fuchs, letter to invited art-

ists (1981 ). quoted in Glasmeier and

Stengel 2005 (see note 25)

3:f The artistic board included

Coosie van Bruggen, Germano Ce-

lant, johannes Gachnang and Gerhard

Storck.

34 From the Documenta 7 cata-

logue, quoted in Crimp 1 993 (see note

5), pP. 240-41

35 The team consisted of Bart de

Baere. Pier Luigi Tazi, and Denys

ZacharoPoulos

36 Quoted in Glasmeìer and Sten-qel 2OO5 (see note 25), P 335

!7 ..lan Hoet, introduclion to the

Documenta I catalogue, quoled inibid., p. 334.

38 The phenomenon can be read

in the lioht of BertolÌ Brecht's analysis

:i'i;i?;' à,i.*;iiln, ln which' ne

suoqests that in modern times lhe art-

wo? can be sold" wilhout its author:

the tame of the author without the work

thatdetermined his or her success, and

a oartial or modi{ied version of the art-

work can operate as a substitule for

the whole work. Conversely. the cura-

tor's vision can also be "sold," in a way'

without the arh{orks, and an exhibi-'tion's discursive frame can subs'litute

for the actual narralives and qualities

ot the individual arMorks it includes'

See Brecht, "lì processo dell'opera da

tre soldi," in idem, Scrlttl su//a /ettera-

tura e sutl'ade, ed Cesare Cases, irans

Bianca Zagari (Turìn, 1 973)

39 Carol Becker, 'A Convereation

wilh Okwui Enwezor," Art Journal 58(Summer 2OO2) The curelorial team

included Hou Hanru, KellyJones. Yu

Yeon Kim, Gerardo Mosquera, Collin

Rìchards, and Octavio ZaYa,

4 An altogether dilferent idea

of 'multiple aulhorship takes shape

around the "textualilation of space and

Ihe sDatializalion of discourse' called

for bv Miwon Kwon, which raises this

ouesiton: if lhe artist Is the aulhor of

the soatial discourse and the narrative

detelmrning the 'apparitron" ol lhe

artwork. when an artist and a cura-

lor collaborate, are they coauthoringthe exhibition? Philosopher and art

theore'tician Boris Groys has noted thal

the "identification of selection and cre-

ation" in art, which dates back to lvlar-

cel Duchamp, became crucial again in

nineteen-sixtles lnslallation practice'

ln installations, artists show "their per-

sonal practices ot selection" and con-

lribule to reducing the gap between

curatorial and artistìcwork What Groys

thus implies is that both making rnslal-

lalions and making exhibitiors demand

choices-of sites, objects, artworks,

sources-a view that allows him to the-

orize a coauthorshìp condition for cura-

tors and artists. See lviwon Kwon, One

Place After Anothet (Cambridge [MA],2OO2), p. 29, and BorisGroys lvlultipleAulhorship," in Barbara Vanderlinden

and ÉlenaFiìipovic (eds ). Ihe Manlfes-

ta Decade: Debates on Contem?oraryAft Exhibitions and Biennials in Post-

Walt Eurcpe (Cambridge [l\4A], 2005)'pp. 93-95.

41 Catherine David, Documenta1 0 oress conlerence, 1 997, quoted rn

Glsmeier and Stengel 2OO5 (see note

25), p. 352.

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2fi

h Hct introduction to theEÈ 9 €talogue, quoled in

r:13/t-

lb ÉEnomenon can be read

El* d Bertolt Brecht's analysislG mmption, in which he

*h in modern times the art-a E 'sld" without its authorìEdtlE authorwithout theworkÉnircd his or hersuccess. andlil q nrodified version of the art-6 qeBte m a substitu'te for* xxk Conve6ely, the cuE-Én @ d$ be -sold," in away,I lE iltworks, and an exhibi-Garsre frame can substitutet dEI ffitives and qualities! ilrfliEl artworks it includes,

Et 'll processo dell'opera daf" h ilem, Scritti sulla lettera-)rrh, ed. Cesare Cmes, tEns.rZegd ffurin, 1 973).

Crd Becker, 'A Conversationfui Emezor," Att Journal 58rc N)). The cuEtorial team5 Hou Hilru, Kelly Jones, Yu

kr Gemrdo MosqueE, CollinG, flìd &avio Zaya.

Àr aftoqether different idearlit'e athorship" takes shapedlte'bftJalìzation of space and

Ébn of discouree" calìed

; hon Kwon, which raises thish i tE artist is the author olÉ dsuEe and the narrative

-!g lhe 'apparition" of lhe

Iù. rtH il artist and a cura-ùdEùe ile they coauthoringrffÈo? Philosopher and artr*iil Eoris Goys h6 noted thatùSf,dion of selection and cre-f- rt which dates back to MarErp. be@me crucial again int nirtie§' installation practice.

Eixs artists show "their Per-llÉiE of selection" and con-b h rEdrcing the gap betweend and artistic work. Whal Groys

ft b that both making ìnstal-

Étd traking exhibitions demandG.d sit6, ob.iects, artworks,G{$an that allows him lo the-rea.dtoship condition for cura-drÉ Se Miwon Kwon, Oneslftr tupther (Cambridge [MA],AI,29, ild Boris Groys, "MultipleDitÈ' n BarbaE VanderlindenLEFapryic (eds.), The Manifes-É Debates on ContemporuryEflrÈirc ild Biennials in Post-

6rye (Cambridge [MA], 2005),B-gs-

Gdsre David, DocumentaEE srbrence, 1997, quoted in

FÈ{d Stengel 2005 (see note

t3F"

Qugtions of Au(ho6hip in Biènnial CuratingFederi€ Martini and \fitoria Martini

42 Carol Becker, 'A Conve6ationwith Okwui Enwezot," Art Journal 58(Summer 2002). The Documenta 1 1

cuEtorial team included Carlos Basu-aldo, Ute Meta Bauer, Susanne Ghez,SaEt MahaEj, N4ark N6h, and OctavioZaya.

tt3 Okwui Enwezor, loreword andintroduction of lhe Documentall:Shott Guide, quoted in Glasmeier andStengel 2005 (see note 25), p. 374,

4 For the 2003 Venice Biennial.Bonami invited cumtors Carlos Ba-sualdo, Daniel Birnbaum, CatherineDavid, Hou Hanru, l\,lssimiliano Gioni,Molly Nesbit, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, ca-briel Orozco, Gilane Tawadros, RirkritTimvanija, and lgor Zabel.

/*t "The Archeology of Things toComei Daniel Birnbaum," in Obrist2009 (see note 9), p. 237.

46 lgor Zabel, "The Power of Pro-posing Things, of Taking Risks; A Con-versation wilh FEncesco Bonami," inMarieke wn Hal, Viktor lVisiano, andlgor Zabel (eds.), "Biennials," specialissue, MJ-Manif*ta Journal 2 (Vtlinler2003 - Sprins 2004), p. 1 81.

47 Stéphanie Moisdon and Hans-Ulrich Obrist, The Histoty of a DeadeThat Has Not Yet Been Named (Zutich,2007), p. 1 0.

/A Bsed on Bertolt Brecht's ques-tion "What keeps mankind alive?" Thequestion is taken from the title ol a re-nowned song from Brecht's fhe lhree-penny Opem (1928),

49 WHW (eds,), What Keeps Man-kind Alire?-The Texts (2009), p. 95.

50 ln the lirst pages of the mta-logue, WHWalso exposesthe "coaulho-rial" role taken on by public ìn§itutionswhen they interfere in the choice oI theexhibition siìes and nilrcw the budgetfor producing the artists' prcjects, twoelements that deeply influence theshaping ofany Biennial; see ibid.

5l lbid., p.96.

il0rts

2t5