Thinking About Exhibitions

Bruce W. Ferguson, Reesa Greenberg, Sandy Nairne

• LIST OF PLATES, NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, INTRODUCTION, PART I: THE FUTURE OF HISTORY, 1. THE MUSEUM AND THE ‘AHISTORICAL’ EXHIBITION: the latest gimmick by the arbiters of taste, or an important cultural phenomenon?, 2. BROKERING IDENTITIES: art curators and the politics of cultural representation, 3. LARGE EXHIBITIONS: a sketch of a typology, 4. FOR EXAMPLE, DOCUMENTA, OR, HOW IS ART HISTORY PRODUCED?, PART II: STAGING SPECTATORS, 5. THE EXHIBITIONARY COMPLEX, 6. THE MUSEUM FLAT, 7. NAMING NAMES: the art of memory and the NAMES Project AIDS Quilt, PART III: GRAMMATIC ACTS, 8. LES IMMATÉRIAUX, 9. EXHIBITION RHETORICS: material speech and utter sense, 10. CREATING SPACES, 11. THE DISCOURSE OF THE MUSEUM, PART IV: CURATORS OR CATERERS, 12. THE GREAT CURATORIAL DIM-OUT, 13. FROM MUSEUM CURATOR TO EXHIBITION AUTEUR: inventing a singular position, 14. CONSTRUCTING THE SPECTACLE OF CULTURE IN MUSEUMS, 15. THE SHOW YOU LOVE TO HATE: a psychology of the mega-exhibition, 16. FREE FALL—FREEZE FRAME: Africa, exhibitions, artists, PART V: SPATIAL PLAY, 17. THE ONE-PICTURE GALLERY, 18. DISSENTING SPACES, 19. FUNCTION OF ARCHITECTURE: notes on work in connection with the places where it is installed taken between 1967 and 1975, some of which are specially summarized here, 20. THE GALLERY AS A GESTURE, 21. POSTMODERNISM’S MUSEUM WITHOUT WALLS, 22. THE EXHIBITED REDISTRIBUTED: a case for reassessing space, PART VI: THE EXHIBITION CONDITION, 23. A VISUAL MACHINE: art installation and its modern archetypes, 24. THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF DISSENT, 25. MODERNISM, NATIONALISM AND BEYOND: a critical history of exhibitions of First Nations art, 26. IN AND OUT OF PLACE, 27. WHAT’S IMPORTANT ABOUT THE HISTORY OF MODERN ART EXHIBITIONS?, SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY, INDEX