Contemporary Curating, Artistic Reference and Public Reception undertakes a unique critical survey and analysis of prevailing group exhibition-making practices in Europe, the UK and North America.

Drawing on curatorial literature and two in-depth case studies of group exhibitions, Bertrand advocates for a mode of curatorial practice that secures the content of artworks, in contrast to prevailing open-ended, indeterminate approaches. Proposing a third exhibition type beyond the current binary exhibition ontology that opposes art historical narratives to curatorial installations or Gesamtkunstwerk, the book directly tackles the enduring critique of curating as a mediating activity that produces sameness in group-exhibition contexts by establishing artistic equivalences. The book relies on the principles of analytical philosophy to assess how different exhibition-making approaches fix reference and determine artistic reception, reintroducing a standard to evaluate exhibitions beyond personal taste and thematic coherence. Bertrand ultimately proposes an alternative conception of practice that affirms the renewed relevance of the institutional group show in the present context.

Contemporary Curating, Artistic Reference and Public Reception will be of interest to academics, researchers and students working in museum and curatorial studies, visual cultures, art theory and art history programmes. Art theorists and critics, as well as curators of contemporary art with a research-based practice, should also find much to interest them within the pages of the book.

Contemporary Curating, Artistic Reference and Public Reception undertakes a unique critical survey and analysis of prevailing group exhibition-making practices in Europe, the UK and North America.

Drawing on curatorial literature and two in-depth case studies of group exhibitions, Bertrand advocates for a mode of curatorial practice that secures the content of artworks, in contrast to prevailing open-ended, indeterminate approaches. Proposing a third exhibition type beyond the current binary exhibition ontology that opposes art historical narratives to curatorial installations or Gesamtkunstwerk, the book directly tackles the enduring critique of curating as a mediating activity that produces sameness in group-exhibition contexts by establishing artistic equivalences. The book relies on the principles of analytical philosophy to assess how different exhibition-making approaches fix reference and determine artistic reception, reintroducing a standard to evaluate exhibitions beyond personal taste and thematic coherence. Bertrand ultimately proposes an alternative conception of practice that affirms the renewed relevance of the institutional group show in the present context.

Contemporary Curating, Artistic Reference and Public Reception will be of interest to academics, researchers and students working in museum and curatorial studies, visual cultures, art theory and art history programmes. Art theorists and critics, as well as curators of contemporary art with a research-based practice, should also find much to interest them within the pages of the book.

Les historiens furent parmi les premiers à le souligner : à la fin du XIXe siècle et au début du XXe siècle, l’influence du nationalisme – ou des nationalismes – ne repose pas seulement, voire pas prioritairement, sur la force de ses idées. Cette influence paraît s’appuyer sur « un sens de la formule, de la métaphore, de l’évocation » davantage que sur la « théorie » (Michel Winock à propos du nationalisme barrésien), ou, pour reprendre une dichotomie qui a durablement structuré le champ intellectuel depuis le milieu du XIXe siècle, dans la diffusion des doctrines nationalistes, l’efficacité du style l’aurait souvent emporté sur celle des idées – en littérature a fortiori.

Ce sont ces enjeux idéologiques du style littéraire, mais aussi ceux des imaginaires linguistiques et stylistiques afférents, que les contributions ici rassemblées se proposent d’expliciter, à partir d’un corpus littéraire narratif, essayistique, voire poétique, composé tout à la fois des œuvres des chantres du nationalisme (Maurice Barrès, Charles Maurras), de romans qui reflètent des idées et des valeurs proches du nationalisme (tels ceux écrits par Henry Bordeaux, René Bazin ou Ernest Psichari), d’essais ou de pamphlets de Paul Déroulède et Édouard Drumont, ou encore d’articles critiques et de poèmes d’orientation nationaliste.

Ce volume, qui rassemble les communications prononcées lors du colloque organisé les 28 et 29 juin 2018 à l’Université du Luxembourg, propose ainsi de réfléchir aux liens entre langue, style et idéologies nationalistes en littérature au tournant des XIXe-XXe siècles.

Contemporary Curating, Artistic Reference and Public Reception undertakes a unique critical survey and analysis of prevailing group exhibition-making practices in Europe, the UK and North America.

Drawing on curatorial literature and two in-depth case studies of group exhibitions, Bertrand advocates for a mode of curatorial practice that secures the content of artworks, in contrast to prevailing open-ended, indeterminate approaches. Proposing a third exhibition type beyond the current binary exhibition ontology that opposes art historical narratives to curatorial installations or Gesamtkunstwerk, the book directly tackles the enduring critique of curating as a mediating activity that produces sameness in group-exhibition contexts by establishing artistic equivalences. The book relies on the principles of analytical philosophy to assess how different exhibition-making approaches fix reference and determine artistic reception, reintroducing a standard to evaluate exhibitions beyond personal taste and thematic coherence. Bertrand ultimately proposes an alternative conception of practice that affirms the renewed relevance of the institutional group show in the present context.

Contemporary Curating, Artistic Reference and Public Reception will be of interest to academics, researchers and students working in museum and curatorial studies, visual cultures, art theory and art history programmes. Art theorists and critics, as well as curators of contemporary art with a research-based practice, should also find much to interest them within the pages of the book.

Contemporary Curating, Artistic Reference and Public Reception undertakes a unique critical survey and analysis of prevailing group exhibition-making practices in Europe, the UK and North America.

Drawing on curatorial literature and two in-depth case studies of group exhibitions, Bertrand advocates for a mode of curatorial practice that secures the content of artworks, in contrast to prevailing open-ended, indeterminate approaches. Proposing a third exhibition type beyond the current binary exhibition ontology that opposes art historical narratives to curatorial installations or Gesamtkunstwerk, the book directly tackles the enduring critique of curating as a mediating activity that produces sameness in group-exhibition contexts by establishing artistic equivalences. The book relies on the principles of analytical philosophy to assess how different exhibition-making approaches fix reference and determine artistic reception, reintroducing a standard to evaluate exhibitions beyond personal taste and thematic coherence. Bertrand ultimately proposes an alternative conception of practice that affirms the renewed relevance of the institutional group show in the present context.

Contemporary Curating, Artistic Reference and Public Reception will be of interest to academics, researchers and students working in museum and curatorial studies, visual cultures, art theory and art history programmes. Art theorists and critics, as well as curators of contemporary art with a research-based practice, should also find much to interest them within the pages of the book.

Les historiens furent parmi les premiers à le souligner : à la fin du XIXe siècle et au début du XXe siècle, l’influence du nationalisme – ou des nationalismes – ne repose pas seulement, voire pas prioritairement, sur la force de ses idées. Cette influence paraît s’appuyer sur « un sens de la formule, de la métaphore, de l’évocation » davantage que sur la « théorie » (Michel Winock à propos du nationalisme barrésien), ou, pour reprendre une dichotomie qui a durablement structuré le champ intellectuel depuis le milieu du XIXe siècle, dans la diffusion des doctrines nationalistes, l’efficacité du style l’aurait souvent emporté sur celle des idées – en littérature a fortiori.

Ce sont ces enjeux idéologiques du style littéraire, mais aussi ceux des imaginaires linguistiques et stylistiques afférents, que les contributions ici rassemblées se proposent d’expliciter, à partir d’un corpus littéraire narratif, essayistique, voire poétique, composé tout à la fois des œuvres des chantres du nationalisme (Maurice Barrès, Charles Maurras), de romans qui reflètent des idées et des valeurs proches du nationalisme (tels ceux écrits par Henry Bordeaux, René Bazin ou Ernest Psichari), d’essais ou de pamphlets de Paul Déroulède et Édouard Drumont, ou encore d’articles critiques et de poèmes d’orientation nationaliste.

Ce volume, qui rassemble les communications prononcées lors du colloque organisé les 28 et 29 juin 2018 à l’Université du Luxembourg, propose ainsi de réfléchir aux liens entre langue, style et idéologies nationalistes en littérature au tournant des XIXe-XXe siècles.