curating.org
Talks
Ronald Kolb
Post-Exhibitionary Practices. A methodological journey to contemporary forms of knowledge production called exhibitions.
17 November 2023, 6pm
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This presentation is based on my PhD thesis, which will be concluded imminently.
Based on the assumption that neoliberal hegemony is crumbling, my research deals with the implications of these global changes in the exhibitionary complex, in artistic and curatorial practices working in public spheres – both in more representational infrastructures and in more operational contexts of social practices. What new roles of artistic and curatorial practices beyond the neoliberal condition will need to emerge? Which of these can give relevant direction?
In this talk, I plan to outline a methodological schema for the forms of knowledge production in exhibitionary contexts and their expository, persuasive, coercive, participatory, … modes of operation. To do this, we need to talk about where the knowledge production takes place, who is participating in it, how is it displayed, with what intentions. What rules does the production of knowledge follow? What rationality and what objectivity underlie them? And so on.
Spoiler Alert: I will argue for a repositioning of conventional universalised knowledge production in favour of more nuanced, situated and networked forms of knowledge and their governmental infrastructures. I propose therefore the concept of the “post-exhibitionary complex”, which sees exhibitions as active social spaces for negotiation and (self-)critical knowledge production: as transversal contact zones.
Ronald Kolb is a researcher, lecturer, curator, designer and filmmaker, based between Stuttgart and Zurich. Co-Head of the Postgraduate Programme in Curating, ZHdK and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal On-Curating.org. PHD candidate in the Practice-Based Doctoral Programme in Curating, University of Reading/ZHdK. The PhD research deals with curatorial practices in global/situated contexts in light of governmentality – its entanglements in representational power and self-organized modes of participatory practices in the arts.