On Friday, March 30 and Saturday, March 31, 2012, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal will hold Manufacturing Exhibitions (2), part two in a series of events revolving around curatorial theory and practice in contemporary art. The MACM wishes to present to its audience the contributions of distinguished international specialists known for their critical experience regarding curatorial practice and extensive knowledge of institutional structures, and whose research features prominently in the fields of theoretical discussions and publication.

Manufacturing Exhibitions (2) will take up the historiographic perspective introduced at the symposium held in March 2011 by once again tying the study of exhibition history (this time, with particular focus on the last two decades) to a set of current issues. Among other topics, the speakers will tackle the concept of a hypothetical canon of art exhibitions and will re-examine certain historical texts that have influenced curatorial theory. The notions of time and duration will also be invoked in relation to specific types of works and aesthetic apparatuses, fuelling further discussions on the new methodological parameters involved in producing exhibitions. Other subjects include the recent transformations which various exhibition protocols have undergone as a result of the global socio-economic context, and a renewed reading of artistic and social enmeshment operating through the expanded notion of mediation.

Speakers

Søren Andreasen

Artist and writer

Søren Andreasen is a visual artist and writer based in Copenhagen. His recent exhibitions include ONTOTECH, Center for Contemporary Art (Århus, 2009) and Collection Mabuse, Overgaden (Copenhagen, 2011). He has worked as a curator on exhibitions like Fantom, Charlottenborg (Copenhagen, 2006) and The Soft Shields of Pleasure, Den Frie (Copenhagen, 2008). His writings include a self-published series of pamphlets and essays on art published in various magazines. Together with Lars Bang Larsen, he writes about mediation and art, for example in Manifesta Journal 12 (2011) and the anthology Curating Subjects (2007). He was a professor at The Jutland Art Academy from 2004 to 2010.


Vincent Bonin

Independent curator

Vincent Bonin lives and works in Montreal. As a curator, he notably organized Documentary Protocols (1967-1975), a three-part research project (two exhibitions and a publication) dealing with the history of artist-run spaces and parallel galleries in Canada. The exhibitions took place in 2007 and 2008 at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery of Concordia University in Montreal. The accompanying book length publication, under his editorship, was launched in 2010. He is one of the curators (Grant Arnold, Catherine Crewston, Barbara Fischer, Michèle Thériault and Jayne Wark) of Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada (1965-1980), touring nationally since 2010. He organized with Catherine J. Morris, curator of the Elizabeth Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, an exhibition devoted to the “conceptual period” of American art critic Lucy R. Lippard. Entitled Materializing “Six Years”: Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art, it is slated to open at the Brooklyn Museum in September 2012. Alongside curating exhibitions on the 1960s and 1970s, he often organized exhibitions with artists (Jon Knowles, 2010, and more recently, Sophie Bélair-Clément), in which professional categories are challenged. His writings have been published as chapters in such anthologies as Ouvrir le document: Enjeux et pratiques de la documentation dans les arts visuels contemporains (Les presses du réel, Dijon, 2010), and Institutions by Artists (Fillip, Vancouver, 2012).


Barbara Clausen

Independent curator and guest professor in the Art History Department, Université du Québec à Montreal

Barbara Clausen lives and works in Montréal. She is currently a guest professor in the Art History Department at the Université du Québec à Montreal. Since the late 1990s, she has worked at Dia Art Foundation (New York), de Appel (Amsterdam) and Documenta 11 (Kassel), curated, among others, the exhibition and performance series After the Act (2005) and co-curated the performance and lecture series Wieder und Wider (2006) at MUMOK Vienna (Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien) and, most recently, Push and Pull (2010-2011), a collaboration between MUMOK Vienna, Tanzquartier Wien and Tate Modern. She recently curated Down Low Up High – Performing the Vernacular at Argos Centre for Art and Media (Brussels, 2011) and is currently organizing an exhibition on the work of Babette Mangolte for VOX, centre d’art contemporain (Montréal, 2013).


Florence Derieux

Director FRAC Champagne-Ardenne

Florence Derieux is an art historian and independent curator. Since 2008, she has been Director of FRAC (Fonds régional d’art contemporain) Champagne-Ardenne. She worked as a curator at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris from 2000 to 2002, before being named associate curator at the Musée Picasso in Antibes. In 2005, she became curator for contemporary art at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne. She joined Le Magasin – Centre National d’Art Contemporain in Grenoble in 2007 as associate curator. There, in connection with the international curatorial training program at the École du Magasin, she also conducted research that was published in the monograph Harald Szeemann. Méthodologie individuelle (JRP Ringier, 2007). In 2007-2008, she taught art history and exhibition history at both the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Montpellier and the École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL). At FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, she has curated exhibitions on artists such as Anna + Peter, Boris Achour, Martin Boyce, Tom Burr, Julien Carreyn, Dexter Dalwood, Latifa Echakhch, Cyprien Gaillard, Marine Hugonnier, Lothar Hempel, Eugene van Lamsweerde/Ines van Lamsweerde/Vinood Matadin, Nick Mauss, Ciprian Mureșan, Lili Reynaud Dewar and Emily Wardill. Since 2004, she has been a correspondent in France for Flash Art International. She contributes regularly to various specialized magazines including artpress, Frieze, Frog, Idea and Mousse.


Reesa Greenberg

Adjunct Professor, Carleton University and York University

Reesa Greenberg is an art historian and museum consultant whose research focuses on exhibitions and display. Of late, she has turned her attention to the emerging field of exhibition history, writing about Remembering Exhibitions and Repeating Exhibitions as well as how exhibitions manifest on the Web. She is co-editor of Thinking About Exhibitions, Routledge, 1996, and Adjunct Professor at both Carleton University, Ottawa and York University,Toronto.


Hou Hanru

Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs and Chair of Exhibition and Museum Studies, San Francisco Art Institute

Hou Hanru has been Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs, and Chair of Exhibition and Museum Studies at the San Francisco Art Institute since 2006, and is currently curating the 5th Auckland Triennial (New Zealand, 2013). As an art and culture critic and curator, he has been focusing on the dynamic relationship between art, architecture, urbanism and social change in the age of globalization, and new models of space production, social engagement and multicultural negotiation. Hou has independently curated or co-curated numerous exhibitions including: The Spectacle of the Everyday, 10th Biennale de Lyon (2009); Not Only Possible, But Also Necessary – Optimism in The Age of Global Wars, 10th Istanbul Biennial (2007); Everyday Miracle, four women artists in the Chinese Pavilion (Shen Yuan, Yin Xiuzhen, Kan Xuan, Cao Fei), 52nd Venice Biennale (2007); Go Inside, 3rd Tirana Biennale (Albania, 2005); Z.O.U. – Zone Of Urgency, 50th Venice Biennale (2003); Gwangju Biennale (South Korea, 2002); Shanghai Spirit, 3rd Shanghai Biennale (Shanghai Art Museum, China, 2000); Cities on the Move (1997-2000: Wiener Secession, Vienna, Austria; CAPC, Bordeaux, France; PS1, New York, U.S.A.; Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk, Denmark; The Hayward Gallery, London, U.K.; various venues, Bangkok, Thailand; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland); and Hong Kong, etc., Johannesburg Biennale (South Africa, 1997).


Jens Hoffmann

Director, Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, California College of the Arts, San Francisco

Jens Hoffmann is the Director of the California College of the Arts’ Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco. Most recently, he was co-curator of the 2nd San Juan Triennial (Puerto Rico, 2009) and the curator, with Adriano Pedrosa, of the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011). Currently, he is curating the 8th Shanghai Biennial, opening in October 2012. In 2009, Hoffmann founded The Exhibitionist: A Journal for Exhibition Making. He has been editor-at-large of Mousse magazine since 2011. Hoffmann is Assistant Professor in the Curatorial Practice Program of the California College of the Arts in San Francisco and a guest professor at the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan. He has written over 200 articles on art and curatorial practice for art magazines and museum publications. His latest books include The Next Documenta Should be Curated by An Artist (ed.) (Frankfurt: Revolver, 2004), Perform, co-authored with Joan Jonas (London: Thames & Hudson, 2005) and The Studio (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2012). His book Show Time, a history of exhibitions from 1990 to the present, will be published by Thames & Hudson, London in the fall of 2012.

Photo: Portrait of the curator as a young man


Lars Bang Larsen

Art historian, writer and curator

Lars Bang Larsen, an art historian, writer and curator, has co-curated exhibitions such as A History of Irritated Material, Raven Row (London, 2010), Populism, Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, 2005) and La insurrección invisible de un millón de mentes, Sala Rekalde (Bilbao, 2005). Bang Larsen is also author of the books Art is Norm (2012), The Model: A Model for a Qualitative Society, 1968 (2010) and Sture Johannesson (2002). He wrote his PhD at the University of Copenhagen on psychedelic concepts in neo-avant-garde art.


Dieter Roelstraete

Manilow Senior Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

Dieter Roelstraete is the Manilow Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, where he is currently preparing an exhibition of work by the Polish-born, London-based artist Goshka Macuga. From 2003 to 2011, he was a curator at MuHKA, the Antwerp museum of contemporary art, where he organized exhibitions of Chantal Akerman (2012), Liam Gillick & Lawrence Weiner (2011) and thematic group shows focusing on contemporary art from Vancouver (2005) and Rio de Janeiro (2011). Formerly an editor of Afterall journal, Roelstraete has published extensively on contemporary art and related philosophical issues in numerous catalogues and journals.


Kitty Scott

Director, Visual Arts, The Banff Centre

Kitty Scott has been Director, Visual Arts at The Banff Centre since 2007. Previously, she was chief curator at the Serpentine Gallery, London, and curator, Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Scott has curated exhibitions on artists such as Francis Alÿs, Janet Cardiff, Paul Chan, Peter Doig, Ragnar Kjartansson, Silke Otto-Knapp, Ken Lum and Ron Terada, and is an agent for dOCUMENTA (13) (Kassel, 2012). She organized the curatorial symposium Are Curators Unprofessional? (2010) at The Banff Centre and edited the publication Raising Frankenstein: Curatorial Education and Its Discontents (Cologne: Koenig Books, 2010). She has written extensively on contemporary art for catalogues and journals including Parachute, Parkett and Canadian Art, and has contributed to numerous books on curatorial studies. As an independent curator, she has organized exhibitions including Bankside Browser (2000) for Tate Modern, London and Universal Pictures (1999) at the Melbourne International Biennial. Scott was the Canadian coordinator for the 7th Istanbul Biennial (2001) and also worked on the inaugural SITE Santa Fe Biennial (1995). She is visiting professor for the Curatorial Practice Program at the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, as well as an adjunct professor at York University, Toronto, and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.