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MACC Curating the Contemporary 2013-14: Theory in Practice
‘Re-enacting Exhibitions ’ : A Case Study
Stephen Willats between Raven Row and the Whitechapel Gallery
Miriam La Rosa
“If you don’t want to repeat things,
you have to understand them”
McCarthy, 2006: 228
Abstract
This paper aims to analyse the current phenomenon of re-enactment of historical exhibitions from
the particular perspective of two shows on the British conceptual artist Stephen Willats, restaged in
2014 at Raven Row and the Whitechapel Gallery, in London.
After an introduction to the notion of ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions’ – which merges together a
theoretical approach and practical examples – the paper presents the two different typologies of
‘exhibition within exhibition’ and ‘exhibition of exhibition’. These are then elaborated through the
specific case study: i.e. analysis and comparison of the two shows in relation to their scope and
curatorial strategy. A further connection with two additional examples, i.e. Richard Hamilton at
Tate Modern and the ICA, in London – again mirroring the two suggested typologies of re-enactment
– is also employed to valorise the conclusions gained from the case study. The ultimate goal is to
consider different approaches towards ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions’, whilst discussing the eventual
reasoning behind the engagement with this practice for contemporary art institutions.
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1. Defying ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions’ through theory and practice
It looks like a sort of addictive behaviour, one that is becoming common in the most recent curatorial
practice: contemporary art institutions and their curators seem to be obsessed with the past. They
repeatedly engage with reconstructions, re-interpretations and/or re-propositions of historical shows
where the artworks are not the exclusive focus, but a part of a bigger whole: exhibitions that exhibit
themselves more than the content of their display. A renowned example in this regard is the restaging
of Harald Szeeman’s Live in Your Head. When Attitudes Become Form1 held by The Fondazione
Prada, in Venice, in occasion of the 2013 Biennale Il Palazzo Enciclopedico/The Encyclopaedic
Palace curated by Massimiliano Gioni. Hence, the 1969 show was faithfully reconstructed in its
entirety of walls, floors and artworks; in other words, the Kunsthalle twentieth-century rooms
literally occupied the frescoed spaces of Ca’Corner della Regina.
Whilst not ample literature exists on the topic, the article ‘Remembering Exhibitions’: from
point to line to web 2 by scholar Reesa Greenberg addresses the practices of ‘exhibitions of
exhibitions’– defined by Greenberg as “postmodernist exhibition practices” (Greenberg, 2009: 1) –
from the exclusive perspective of memory. Greenberg proposes to recognise ‘Remembering
Exhibitions’ as a proper exhibition genre, comprising of three different types: the replica, the riff
and the reprise. The replica “seeks to re-assemble as much of the art work displayed as possible, either
as originals or reproductions, in a stand-alone single exhibition or sequence of exhibitions that may
or may not employ the initial installation schema and may or may not be held in the original
location. […] All the original contents of an earlier exhibition are re-assembled in the same,
unchanged space, in the same arrangement as before”(Greenberg, 2009: 2). In most replicas though,
archival materials and documentation substitute the original work and/or they result in large-scale
homages or anniversary shows, aiming to promote research or emphasise particular historical
moments. The reprise is then a re-staging that happens within the realm of the Internet, by means of
websites containing some sort of extension of the original show, i.e. additional content, in the form of
documentation. In this case, information and memory’s preservation seem to be the main focus.
Nonetheless, the last typology, i.e. the riff, surpasses the function of lieux de memoire in favour of a
more stimulating proposition. According to Greenberg “the exhibition riff is self-reflective and
performative, drawing attention to exhibitions as entities that deserve attention”(Greenberg, 2009: 5).
In this regard, she offers the example of the 2005 jubilee Documenta3 curated by Michael Glasmeier
1 Previous versions of the same show are: the 2004 How Latitudes Become Forms, at Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the 2008 When Lives Become Form, at Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art, in Tokyo. Another reference to the 2 The article was published in 2009 in Tate Papers. Tate’s online Research Journal, Issue 12. 3 50 Jahre/Years. Documenta 1955-2005 was named as jubilee Documenta since it celebrated the 50 years anniversary of the exhibition.
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who, in order to present the eleven previous editions of the show, engaged with an alternative way to
reconstruction and created an exhibition with five chapters addressing different ways of
remembering Documenta: two paired exhibitions Discreet Energies and Archive in Motion, a map of
Documenta artworks in situ in the city of Kassel, a film programme and the conference Staging and
Criticism4 (Glasmeier, 2005).
In previous research5, it has been suggested to approach ‘exhibiting exhibitions’ from the side
of performance rather than memory, i.e. going beyond Reesa Greenberg’s notion of ‘Remembering
Exhibitions’ through the proposition of ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions’: a format that borrows Gilles
Deleuze’s classification of simulacra and the idea of historical re-enactment6 to contextualise the
relevance of exhibition’s re-constructions within a contemporary curatorial practice. In fact, the
performative function associated with the riff already leads towards a parallelism with the
philosophical concept of simulacra as developed by Deleuze in his 1983 Plato and the Simulacrum,
where simulacra are those opportunities by which accepted ideals or privileged positions can be
challenged and overturned, and new occasions for discussion arise (Deleuze, 1983)7. According to this
reading, re-exhibiting historical exhibition supersedes the function of place of memory to become an
actual re-enactment or, in other words, a new performance. This assumption refers to re-enactment as
the action of acting again and, likewise, to perform again. To a certain extent, in fact, each re-
performance is a different performance, due to the variation of crucial components such as context
and/or audience. Re-exhibiting exhibitions is therefore a form of re-enactment in itself in the sense
that, in the here and now of a new context, shows of this type perform, rather than just re-produce or
simulate. However, in the circumstance of this paper, a further differentiation needs to be made and
a new issue explored. According to the nature of the re-enactment and to the context in which the
latter is staged, ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions’ can be additionally classified in two main categories:
‘exhibition of exhibition’ and ‘exhibition within exhibition’. Both cases also imply reflecting upon
the notion of authorship: meaning the possible and/or eventual oscillation between old and new
author. Thus, in order to make this analysis clear, examples of current production might result
4 The aspects presented by the five chapters were respectively: the archival, the art historical, the site-specific, the cinematic and the scientific. 5 La Rosa, M. (2014), ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions: an attempt to go beyond memory, in https://thecass.academia.edu/MiriamLaRosa. 6 “Precisely, the term ‘historical re-enactment’ names a scripted activity, generally of educational or entertainment purposes, in which participants follow a pre-planned plot to re-create a historical, often military, event. A particular form of ‘historical re-enactment’ is then ‘living history’: a performance that brings history to life in front of a public without following a prearranged script. Within the field of performance studies, cases of re-enactments are famous for their link to the specificity of a – new, alternative – place.” (La Rosa, 2014: 4) 7 A deeper contextualisation of the parallelism between re-enactment of historical exhibitions and simulacra can be found in La Rosa, M. (2014), ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions: an attempt to go beyond memory, in https://thecass.academia.edu/MiriamLaRosa.
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beneficial. On 12 February 2014, the ICA in London opened Richard Hamilton at the ICA: a
reconstruction of two installations built by Hamilton for the ICA’s previous location in Dover Street
(fig.1-2). Man, Machine and Motion (1955) included thirty open steel frames in which photographic
images were displayed in four themes: ‘Aquatic, Terrestrial, Aerial and Interplanetary’, whilst an
Exhibit (1957), organised around a modular system, was conceived with the intention to give visitors
the chance to generate their own configurations. Besides, the show was parallel to Tate Modern’s
retrospective on Richard Hamilton (13 February – 26 May 2014): a survey aiming to encompass the
full scope of the artist’s work and including installations’ reconstruction8 as well (fig.3-4). It explored
Hamilton’s relationship to design, painting, photography and television, with a particular emphasis
on his engagement and collaborations with other artists. (www.tate.org.uk, Accessed: 21 May, 2014).
The two cases immediately pinpoint the above mentioned approaches towards ‘Re-enacting
Exhibitions’: ‘exhibition of exhibition’ (Richard Hamilton at the ICA) and ‘exhibition within
exhibition’ (Richard Hamilton at the Tate Modern). Both of them are faithful correspondents of
their originals9 and treat exhibitions as objects of arts rather than art’s mere containers. However,
they at the same time embody two different types of re-enactment: in the former case, the location of
the re-enactment is coincident with that of the original and the new curator becomes a sort of new
author. To a certain extent, the institution itself steps into the realm of authorship. On the contrary,
in the case of the latter, the original show is de-contextualised and re-contextualised in a new place
other than time; the notion of authorship is yet clearly linked to the artist, i.e. Richard Hamilton,
whilst the institution takes the role of an “official voice” in his regard.
Fig.1 Fig.2
8 These were, for instance, the exhibition Growth and Form, organised by Hamilton at the ICA for the 1951 Festival of Britain, and reconstructed for the first time in Room 1, or This is Tomorrow, organised by architect and critic Theo Crosby in 1956 at Whitechapel Gallery. 9 In this context the term ‘original’ is meant as synonym of ‘previous’, ‘preceding’ (exhibition), rather than as contrary of ‘copy’.
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The aforementioned When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013 is then a sort of
hybrid typology. The exhibition was the result of a curatorial collaboration between Germano Celant,
Thomas Demand and Rem Khoolas, who intended to initiate an insightful discussion from three
different angles: the curatorial, the artistic and the architectural. Equally to both of Richard
Hamilton’s re-enactments, also in this occasion the exhibition became an object in itself: and even
further, a sort of ready-made10. Hence, despite the dis-location of the reconstruction – in relation to
its original model – as in the Tate Modern’s case, the notion of authorship played a similar role to
that discussed in the case of Richard Hamilton at the ICA: a new curator – three in this instance – as
new author(s). At this point, some spontaneous questions are raised: what are the implications of the
different forms of ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions’? And what is the reasoning behind the institutions’
choices in this regard? An in depth elaboration on this note and the problem of authorship is given
in the following section of this study, through the comparison of Stephen Willats’ re-enactments at
Raven Row and the Whitechapel Gallery in London.
Fig.3 Fig.4
10 Here the term ‘readymade’ is not used in a literal way, meaning the fact that historical exhibitions already belong to the art’s realm – contrarily to the objects of the readymade-action that are daily life objects with no pre-existing artistic value. The exhibition is here referred to as a readymade on a metaphorical level, in relation to the change of context and, to some extent, of authorship.
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2. Comparative Analysis: Stephen Willats at Raven Row and the Whitechapel
Gallery
In March 2014 London has featured two simultaneous exhibitions on the British conceptual artist
Stephen Willats11. The shows, respectively on display at Raven Row (23 January/30 March) and the
Whitechapel Gallery (4 March/14 September), offer an interesting scenario for the discourse around
‘Re-enacting Exhibitions’12. The two institutions have in fact engaged with re-propositions of Willats’
historical exhibitions in a different yet thought-provoking manner. The ground of comparison lays
in the nature of the institutions – both of them non-profit, non-collecting and contemporary art
centred – whilst the scope is to analyse their specific positioning in relation to the practice of
exhibitions’ re-enactment.
Raven Row
Curated by Raven Row’s director Alex Sainsbury, Control. Stephen Willats. Work 1962-69 was meant
to be the first survey of works by Stephen Willats from the sixties, in respect of the institution’s
mission of showing artists “who have somehow escaped London's attention” (www.ravenrow.org,
Accessed: 19 January, 2014). Thus, the aim of the display was to highlight the generally overlooked
meaning of the body of works from Willats’ early practice and, in particular, the transdisciplinarity
of his role as artist, social scientist, engineer and designer (Sainsbury, 2014).
Fig.5 Fig.6
11 Another show on Willats was also held at Victoria Miro from 13 March to 17 April 2014: a commercial gallery in Mayfair, London. 12 The fact that the two exhibitions have been displayed simultaneously is especially interesting in regard to the continuity of the artist’s practice. In fact, Raven Row’s show cover the period between 1962 and the end of the 1960’s – i.e. the exordium of Willats as an artist – while the Whitechapel Gallery’s display highlights Willats’ practice in social interaction, which became particularly predominant after that period.
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The presentation comprised artworks and documentation materials, amongst which stood out
some features of Control: the magazine curated by Willats since 1965 and from which the exhibition
itself took its title. A highly historical representation with attention to detail and information, the
show wanted to inaugurate a new viewpoint on these works that the emphasis on the magazine
witnessed, due to its experimental character. According to researcher and curator Antony Hudek, in
fact, “Control is […] an essential link between Willats’ cybernetic and behavioural artworks from the
sixties and his social projects from the early seventies onwards” (Hudek, 2014: 33). The gallery’s
rooms hosted works on paper merging cybernetic modelling, architectural graphics and constructivist
geometries, together with more sculptural and interactive pieces. Yet, the key of the entire display
was the re-construction of the exhibition Stephen Willats. Visual Automatics and Visual
Transmitters displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford from 22 October to 16 November
1968, and restaged in this context in quite a faithful way (fig.5-6). On the basis of the previous
definition of ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions’, this can be recognised as a case of ‘exhibition within
exhibition’: the re-construction of a historical show within a major survey on an artist’s practice.
Hence, the original display was structured with the shape of a maze where rooms were generated by
means of black fabrics. These aimed to give autonomy and privacy to each work. The latter were a
series of kinetic machines such as Shift Box No. 1, Visual Field Automatic No. 1, ‘Visual Automatics’
nos. 1 to 5 and Visual Transmitters nos. 1 to 3. According to Raven Row though, the 1968’s show had
been misinterpreted. In fact, the critic considered it as poor kinetic art “jinxed by technical
deficiency”(Pethick, 2014: 78) and Willats himself then decided to move beyond, in favour of more
socially engaged art. On the contrary, the London re-enactment gave a different lecture on this
regard. At the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford Willats “presented constructions involving
movement and light – some wall-mounted, others large-scale environments – that were informed by
his interest in contemporary theories: about probability and prediction, behavioural science,
subliminal advertising, and colour in relation to motivation and learning” (www.ravenrow.org,
Accessed 19 may, 2014). The curatorial proposal at Raven Row found its raison d’etre in the
acknowledgement of these objects as experimental “stimuli for states of consciousness” (Sainsbury
2014: 15), therefore performing a new action towards Willats’ work. However, while walking
throughout the exhibition, these nowadays non-functioning machines appeared closer to old relicts
than phenomenological experiments of any sort; on one side highlighting the fragility and
ephemerality of the works and on the other side producing a feeling of nostalgia for a time full of
projections.
Thus, in the context of this study, the relevance of the re-enactment lays in Raven Row’s
determination to propose an alternative view towards part of the artist’s practice: a view that
furthermore wishes to establish a new authority regarding art history. As a case of ‘exhibition within
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exhibition’, Control. Stephen Willats. Work 1962-69 is comparable to Tate Modern’s retrospective on
Richard Hamilton; both institutions approach exhibitions as objects in themselves, purposely re-
contextualised to serve as art history’s milestones and contemporary art’s media. They re-enact
historical shows with the aim of focusing on ground-breaking readings: the collaborative practice of
Hamilton (in the case of Tate Modern) and the experimental nature of Willats’ first works (in the
case of Raven Row) – whether or not such readings are successful is then a questionable point. But
how does this relate to the previously mentioned notion of authorship and, eventually, how does this
differ to the other typology of ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions’ i.e. ‘exhibition of exhibition’? The second
part of this comparative study will help to elaborate on these queries.
Whitechapel Gallery
Stephen Willats: Concerning Our Present Way of Living is the Whitechapel Gallery’s current
archive exhibition, taking place 35 years after Willats’ solo show at the Gallery with the same title
(fig.7-8). Martin Rewcastle curated the 1979 presentation under the directorship of Nicolas Serota.
Although the exhibition was meant to be a survey on the artist’s work, it also included works from a
community project that Willats conducted in collaboration with three groups of East London’s local
workers: Working Within a Defined Context with the dock workers, The Place of Work with the
leather workers, and Sorting Out Other People’s Lives with a resident of the Ocean Estate. These
works were then displayed in the Lower Gallery and Gallery’s foyer, as well as at the Ocean Estate, at
Dame Colet House; and now find their collocation in the archive exhibition’s room of the Gallery, in
conjunction with additional documentation.
Fig.7 Fig.8
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As Willats stated in an interview conducted in January 2014 by the Whitechapel Gallery’s
archive curator Nayia Yiakoumaki, whilst Rewcastle and Serota were interested in showing Willats’
work of that time in comparison with his earlier production, he was primarily keen in “repositioning
the role of the Gallery in the community around it” (Yiakoumaki, 2014: 3). His project in fact
wanted to bring into the Gallery’s space the workers’ opinions and concerns, at the same time
questioning and/or establishing the role of art as a form of social responsibility. To a certain extent,
the 1978 show was one of the first forms of a participatory arts project in Britain. So, what is the
point of restaging, i.e. re-enacting it again in the present time and within the context of the Gallery’s
archive? In the same interview with the exhibition’s curator, Willats comments in this regards: “the
fact that this work took place then is of significance now because it posited a socially based
community practice which was pioneering in the sense that it was even at that stage at odds with
what was the happening in the art world. People didn’t like it too much at that time, […] we’ve moved
on, we’re now in the twenty-first century, but the art world is dominated by the art of the previous
century, we have a legacy hanging on here of what I call ‘last century thinking’” (Yiakoumaki, 2014:
9). Willats’ interpretation of the archival restaging is that of a benefit for contemporary artists’
practice, where the exhibition becomes both an example and a tool for those who want to engage with
community work. However, whilst this last argument finds its collocation within the institution’s
statement of purpose “to bring modern and contemporary art and ideas to local, national and
international audiences by providing a place for free-thinking, creativity and learning”
(www.whitechapelgallery.org, Accessed: 19 May, 2014), it also encourages the development of the
discussion around ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions”.
Similarly to Richard Hamilton at the ICA, the Whitechapel Gallery’s archival re-enactment
on Stephen Willats is a case of ‘exhibition of exhibition’: a show that belongs to the institution’s
history, that contributed to its evolution, and that is then re-proposed and re-contextualised in a
contemporary setting. The aim is to reflect upon the historical development of the Gallery itself,
within its artists’ driven mission. Unlike cases of ‘exhibition within exhibition’, the relationship
towards art history and its interpretation is hence less prominent. Definitely more evolutionary is the
approach to the galleries’ evolvement and action, in these instances operated through a self-reflective
practice. The exhibition is undoubtedly treated as an object with a highly discoursive connotation,
and able to move the reflection towards the history of exhibitions in themselves, rather than the
history of art. However, the most interesting question in this regard is, again, that of authorship.
Precisely: what is the implication of such a re-enactment? Do the Whitechapel Gallery or the ICA –
and their curators – attempt to re-establish a certain authorship towards the institutions’ previous
shows?
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On authorship
Authority is not necessarily synonym of authorship. This last notion, particularly significant for the
study on ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions’, also includes a crucial differentiation according to whether or
not the role of artist and curator are coincident. It is in fact necessary to make a distinction
concerning authorship’s oscillation between curator and artist. To a certain extent, one can argue that
in cases of ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions’ each “new curator” is a sort of “new author”, meaning the fact
that their voice takes a step forward in the interpretation of the original connotation of a work
and/or show. However, when the curator of the original installation and/or exhibition is also the
artist – i.e. Richard Hamilton – defining authorship becomes problematic.
Thus, a first, spontaneous issue in this regard would be: what does make an artist the author
of an artwork? The notion of the author notoriously became questioned in the 20th century with
thinkers such as Roland Barthes who stated that: “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the
death of the author” (Barthes, 1977: 148). On a similar view was then Michel Foucault’s idea around
the concept of the author as a despot who restricts the freethinking of readers (Foucault, 1984). In
the particular context of art, the 1960’s signed the start of a tendency that gave substance to these
theories. According to scholar Sherri Irvin, the so-called appropriation artists “beginning with
Elaine Sturtevant, simply created copies of works by other artists, with little or no manipulation or
alteration, and presented these copies as their own works. The work of the appropriation artists,
which continues into the present13, might well be thought to support the idea that the author is
dead”(Irvin, 2005: 2). Appropriation in art is also nothing new: painters, for instance, have always re-
painted the work of their predecessors as well as contemporaries with the aim of studying their
practice, whilst affirming their personal one. In this respect, Gombrich observes: “The history of art
[…] may be described as the forging of master keys for opening the mysterious locks of our senses to
which only nature herself originally held the key […] Of course, once the door springs open, once the
key is shaped, it is easy to repeat the performance. The next person needs no special insight —no
more, that is, than is needed to copy his predecessor’s master key”(Gombrich, 1960: 359-360). Is this
always the case though? To some extent, one way for artists to establish their authorship status is to
innovate, i.e. to produce something different than what came before. But how does such a view relate
to the discussion conducted in this study? And how does the issue of authorship find its collocation
within a more contemporary artistic panorama, where notions, as that of copyright, are continuously
violated?14
13 Think of, for instance, the practice of artists such as Oliver Laric or Daniel Silver, where appropriation is key to the works’ own definition and meaning. 14 In this regard, think of artists that work in the realm of the Internet such as Jon Rafman or pioneering Net.Art duo Eva and Franco Mattes, akas 0100101110101101.org.
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Moving the debate back to the phenomenon of ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions’ and to our case study,
one can formulate an answer to these questions by comparing the two re-enactments of Stephen
Willats at Raven Row and the Whitechapel Gallery with each other and, consequently, with Richard
Hamilton at Tate Modern and the ICA. In addition, such a comparison should be conducted from the
perspective of three different, yet not necessarily distinct, stakeholders: artist, curator, and
institution. In fact, in the case of ‘exhibition within exhibition’ the notion of authority is more
prominent than that of authorship. As already discussed, the institution’s purpose – in Raven Row as
well as in Tate Modern – is to challenge art historical interpretations rather than artist and/or
curator’s authorship. However, in the case of ‘exhibition of exhibition’ – the Whitechapel Gallery
and the ICA – the institution somehow acquires a new authorship concerning the discourse generated
by the previous exhibition; but the relationship between curators and authorship towards the artist’s
work changes according to whether or not the two roles are coincident. In other words: when the
artist is alive – such as in the case of Stephen Willats at the Whitechapel Gallery – the authorship of
the work still belongs to him/her; e.g. the interview to Willats contained in the exhibition catalogue
witnesses such a statement, ultimately resulting in a collaboration between the artist and the curator
of the re-enactment15. However, when the artist is no longer alive and (s)he was also the show’s own
curator – such as in the case of Richard Hamilton at the ICA – the new curatorial voice, either
consciously or unconsciously, concurs in establishing a new form of authorship towards the work, i.e.
the exhibition itself.
According to this view, ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions’ enters the field of appropriation and, more
generally, of contemporary art; a field where roles such as that of artist and curator are often
mingled and blurred, and the issue of authorship quickly put under interrogation. This furthermore
leads towards the consideration of the exhibition as a developing entity and an expanding field16,
with an always growing role and, why not, responsibility. Are, in fact, re-appropriating institutions
and their curators always aware of both risks and possibilities? This last point, yet owns the shape of
a question.
15 On a similar note, Raven Row’s exhibition catalogue also includes an interview with the artist but its aim is to re-define one particular aspect of his practice, i.e. that of conceptual design, rather than the concept of the show. Again, authority towards art history is here predominant than towards exhibition’s history. 16 The concept of exhibitions as expanded field is formulated by Rosalind Krauss in her 1979 article Sculpture in the Expanded Field.
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3. Conclusions
The analysis of the case study: Stephen Willats between Raven Row and the Whitechapel Gallery,
has demonstrated how the two typologies of ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions’, i.e. ‘exhibition within
exhibition’ and ‘exhibition of exhibition’, differ from each other. In particular, and through the
parallelism with the displays at Tate Modern and the ICA, it has been established that their way of
re-enacting has dissimilar scopes and functions. These especially concern the role of authorship
within a threefold system comprising of artist, curator and institution. The three stakeholders in fact
operate one in relation with the other, sometime overlapping their practices, and consequently
concurring in the establishment of the author’s and/or authoritative position towards exhibitions.
Whilst Raven Row engaged with re-enactment on the basis of an art historical re-discussion
and according to its mission of superseding clichés around art history’s criticism, the Whitechapel
Gallery chose an institution-centred approach; archive-driven and discoursive towards the present.
What was the most successful? There is no need to define it: whether institutions and curators decide
to engage with one or the other type of re-enactment, depends on their ambitions. Meaning: the type
of legacy they want to leave. One might furthermore argue that a more interesting point is that
related to the risk for both formats to become only fashionable tools in the hands of institutions and
curators with a passion for auto-reference. As curator Jens Hoffmann already stated: “The danger is
not high, however, as there are only a handful of iconic exhibitions that have sufficient mass appeal”
(Hoffmann, 2013, in: www.canadianart.ca, Accessed: 21 May, 2014). Besides, not everybody can easily
become a new author and immediately be recognised as such. This requires a pre-existent connection
to the original and/or a very original approach towards its meaning. In the first section of this study,
it has been mentioned the existence of a third, hybrid form of ‘Re-enacting Exhibitions’: a form that
matches together aspects of both re-location and new authorship, i.e. the case of When Attitudes
Become Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013. The latter, in fact, does not only suggest a new reading of
history – that of exhibition, in this instance – but it establishes a new, triple (collaborative)
authorship from the perspective of an artist, an architect and a curator. Hence, the all-in-one author
seems to suggest that the innovative interpretation is not really pointed towards the past or the
present, rather, towards the future. Contemporary art is not only the art of objects as artworks, but it
is also the (growing) art of objects as exhibitions. As such, they often include the intersecting of
function of and collaboration between artist, curator and institution.
Thus, overturning Tom McCarthy’s quote from the 2006 novel Remainder, “if you don’t want
to repeat things, you have to understand them” (McCarthy, 2006: 228); but if you want to change
them, you can try to re-enact them.
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References
Literature
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(winter 1983) pp.45-56.
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The Foucault Reader, New York: Pantheon Books, , pp. 101-120.
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Aesthetics 45 (2005), 123-137.
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- McCarthy, T., (2006), Remainder, Alma Books LTD, London.
- Pethick, E., (2014), ‘Chronology 1958-69’ in (exhibition catalogue) Sainsbury, A. (2014),
Control. Stephen Willats. Work 1962-69, Raven Row, London, pp.69-79.
- Sainsbury, A., (2014), Control. Stephen Willats. Work 1962-69 (exhibition catalogue) Control.
Stephen Willats. Work 1962-69, 23 January-30 March 2014), Raven Row, London.
- Whitechapel Gallery, (2014) Stephen Willats: Concerning Our Present Way of Living
(exhibition catalogue Stephen Willats: Concerning Our Present Way of Living, 4 March-14
September 2014), Whitechapel Gallery, London.
- Yiakoumaki, N., (2014), Ínterview with Stephen Willats’ in (exhibition catalogue)
Whitechapel Gallery, (2014) Stephen Willats: Concerning Our Present Way of Living,
Whitechapel Gallery, London.
14
Web Sources
-‐ http://www.oma.eu/projects/2013/when-attitudes-become-form-bern-1969venice-2013 (Accessed:
18 May, 2014).
-‐ http://www.canadianart.ca/features/2012/10/11/when-attitudes-become-form-become-attitudes/
(Accessed: 18 May, 2014).
-‐ http://www.wattis.org/exhibitions/when-attitudes-became-form-become-attitudes (Accessed: 18
May, 2014).
-‐ http://www.ravenrow.org (Accessed: 19 May, 2014).
-‐ http://whitechapelgallery.org (Accessed: 19 May, 2014).
-‐ http://www.tate.org.uk (Accessed: 21 May, 2014).
-‐ http://www.ica.org.uk (Accessed: 21 May, 2014).
-‐ http://www.canadianart.ca/features/2012/10/11/when-attitudes-become-form-become-attitudes/
(Accessed: 21 May, 2014).
Images
-‐ Fig.1: Richard Hamilton Installation view of Man, Machine and Motion at the ICA, Dover
Street, 1955. ©ICA.
-‐ Fig.2: Install shot of Man, Machine and Motion, Richard Hamilton at the ICA, 12 Feb 2014
– 6 Apr 2014. Photograph by Mark Blower.
-‐ Fig.3: Richard Hamilton, Installation shot of 'Group Two' from the exhibition This Is
Tomorrow, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London 1956. © Whitechapel Gallery.
-‐ Fig. 4: Richard Hamilton, Installation shot from the exhibition This Is Tomorrow, Tate
Modern, 13 February – 26 May 2014. © Tate Modern.
-‐ Fig.5: Stephen Willats: Control Stephen Willats Work 1962 - 69, ‘Visual Automatic Nos 4 &.
Visual Automatic Nos 4 & 5’, 1965. Photograph by Marcus J. Leith.
-‐ Fig.6: Stephen Willats: Control Stephen Willats Work 1962 - 69, ‘Visual Transmitter No. 1,
1965–66’, Private collection, London. Photograph by Marcus J. Leith.
-‐ Fig.7: One of the Display Boards from the Stephen Willats’ project work ‘Inside An Ocean’,
that took place on the Ocean Estate during the exhibition Concerning Our Present Way of
Living, Whitechapel Gallery, 1979. Archive of the Artist.
-‐ Fig.8: Stephen Willats: Concerning Our Present Way of Living at Whitechapel Gallery,
London, March 4 – September 14, 2014. Photograph by Patrick Lears.
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