Today s typology attempts to see if the work of the curator is equivalent to either

5 – Mapping or Playing Chess Introduction SLIDE: Charlie Chaplin as Hitler in The Great Dictator, 1940 • Today’s Typology is the second one in relatio...
Author: Stuart Thompson
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5 – Mapping or Playing Chess Introduction SLIDE: Charlie Chaplin as Hitler in The Great Dictator, 1940 • Today’s Typology is the second one in relation to curating: the first one was related to Lyotard’s exhibition and looked at flea-style exhibition practices, the second (today) looks at the idea of exhibitions as maps or games and on the 4th of March, we will look at exhibitions as narratives. • Today’s typology attempts to see if the work of the curator is equivalent to either -The work of the cartographer (and that exhibitions are like maps) - Tagg and/or -The game of the chess player (and that exhibitions are like games) - Damisch • Firstly, why maps and mapping as the equivalent to exhibitions and curating? Two reasons: First Reason: A Methodological Equivalence → John Tagg: “A Socialist Perspective on Photographic Practice,” in Three Perspectives on Photography: Recent British Photography, Hayward Gallery & Arts Council of Great Britain, 1979 “Every exhibition is a map. As such, it not only separates, defines and describes a certain terrain, marking out its salient features and significant points, omitting and simplifying others, but it also depicts the ground according to a method of projection: a set of conventions and rules under which the map is constructed...” → In other words, both exhibitions and maps follow a comparable method of projection, conventions, and rules. Second Reason: A Conceptual Equivalence → All exhibitions and all maps put forward a concept: SLIDE: Pieter Goos, Paskaerte van Nova Granada En t'Eylandt California, 1666 -This map shows the Island of California as it was imagined in the 18th century: European misconception, dating from the 16th century, that California was not part of mainland North America but rather a large island separated from the continent by a strait now known instead as the Gulf of California. → It made sense to people in the 18th century, not to us anymore. SLIDE: Digital Topographical Map of California, 2007 -Our conception of space is radically different from previous centuries. SLIDE: The 1900 Universal Exhibition, Grand Palais, Paris

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-The 1900 Universal Exhibition put forward a conception of the world that no longer makes sense today: SLIDE: The Cottage Home Gallery, Los Angeles, 2009 -Ibid in 100 years time. → So the two reasons to compare exhibitions and maps are therefore a) A methodological equivalence and b) A conceptual equivalence.

• Secondly, why chess games as the equivalent to exhibition and curating? One Reason: Reason: A Phenomenal Equivalence → Damisch’s argument that exhibitions are like games of chess because in both cases, we are confronted with the same phenomenon: making choices.

• So this is today’s topic: to find out if one can compare cartographers with curators, and consequently, mapping with curating and/or if one can compare chess players with curators and consequently, playing chess with curating. Structure: -1. -2. -3. -4.

Maps by Tagg Moves by Hubert Damisch Seminar Presentation Mapping an exhibition

WARNING: Shortcuts in history / Massive jumps between fields of knowledge Aim: to disrupt the idea that one can map curating as mapping in strict fields of knowledge.

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1. Mapping and Curating: A. Extremely brief overview of the history of mapping: SLIDE: Martin Wallseemÿller, World Map, 1507 • In the Enlightenment, mapping represented an urge towards classification, order and control: markers of universal rationality and progress: it was a sign of literacy and civilisation far away from religious belief or myth. SLIDE: Stephen G. Eick, The world-wide internet traffic, 2004 • Today, maps have ceased to represent order and classification, they have become not only tools for communication, but also events in progress: • Let’s see now if we can bring together mapping and curating.

B. What does curating as mapping mean? The activity of mapping has 4 meanings: SLIDE: Topographical Scales 1) To map is first of all to take the measure of a world: -Mapping: Ex: take the measure of the universe to the scale of man. -Curating: Ex: take the measure of the empire SLIDE: Chinese Astrological Map Sextant 2) To map is to translate the measurement into a common language between people: -Mapping: Ex: translate the mathematical measurement given by a sextant -Curating: Ex: translate artists intentions in the press release, sound bite, etc. SLIDE: Robert Fludd, Utriusque cosmi, 1617-1621 3) To map is to give an ideological character to what has been interpreted. -To translate the measurement taken (or to map) is also to interpret: a tool for propaganda: -Mapping: Ex: Fludd’ alchemical organisation of the Universe: God in the cloud, angels, stars, world divided between animals, plants, and humans. Lady: Human Nature, head near God, but feet in the animal realm. It is up to her to elevate or lower herself. -Curating: Ex: Africa as pan-Africanism? or the remnants of the British Empire? (compare exhibitions: Africa at the RA and Africa Remix at the Hayward) SLIDE: John Speed, World, 1651

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4) To map is to hide the methodology that led to the creation of the map itself: -In his catalogue essay, John Tagg also wrote: “The problem with exhibitions and with maps, is that the conventional nature of the representation tends to be hidden in use. The laws of projection become invisible.” -This means that no one ever reveals the secrets of the trade. The curatorial decisions are always hidden from the public. -Mapping: Ex: Nature: Coast Lines: they are zones, not lines: the unstable space between high and low water in tidal zones cannot be fixed. The cartographer has to “fix” the line arbitrarily. -Curating: Ex: What you see in an exhibition is usually the product of endless months of negotiations and compromise.

• Conclusion: Modern mapping and modern curating has therefore 3 crucial aspects: All mapping/curating is always: 1. Historically and culturally specific (monographs). 2. The result of deliberate or contingent omissions (authorship). 3. Outdated – To-come: There will never be definite maps of any given spatial sphere: maps are always to-come. New forms of communication (cyberspace, satellite TV) have created new spaces previously unimaginable.

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2. Hubert Damisch’s exhibition Moves : SLIDE: Hubert Damisch A. Damisch: • He is an art historian, theorist and philosopher. He trained with Merleau-Ponty in the 60s and quickly became a post-structuralist. His most famous books are The Theory of the /Cloud/ (1972) and The Origin of Perspective (1987)—see outline. • In The Origin of Perspective, he, not unlike Derrida in his Introduction to Husserl’s Origin of Geometry, challenges the idea that the Renaissance is the point of origin for perspective: it was neither invented nor discovered: it is impossible to decide between the two. • His interest in chess stems precisely from this (Derridean) undecidability: For him, in a game of chess, we are always caught between two possibilities: Either you think of the next move as the inevitable outcome of a succession of moves (teleological or historical determination) Or you think of the next move as an entirely new situation unconnected to previous moves (contingent decision). SLIDE: Moves B. The Exhibition: • Damisch’s exhibition took place at the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam between 12 June and 17 August 1997 and was about exhibition making. • It was the fifth in a series of shows originated by Harald Szeeman and Chris Dercon. Other oneoff curators included: Peter Greenaway, Robert Wilson, and Hans Haacke. • The idea of a show about exhibition making was not a new one at the time: As Y-A Bois in his review of Damisch’s show recalled the fact that Warhol staged the exhibition Raid the icebox with Andy Warhol at the Museum of Art of the Rhode Island School of Design in 1969 (exposed the storage spaces of the museum).

C. Damisch and Curating: • Why study this show in the context of the juxtaposition mapping and curating? • Damisch’s exhibition took on a very specific understanding of curating -His aim was to render visible the curator’s decision process: expose the mapping process. -Damisch’s aim was inspired by two major figures: 1. Malraux (p. 1): -Malraux’s famous book, The Museum without walls and his famous self-portrait with works.

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-In this book, Malraux highlighted the importance of the homogenizing effect of photography on the perception of art history in the 20th C. -Photography reduces works of art to a two-dimensional plane and thus organises through purely formal means the heterogeneity of the museum in styles and periods. -But unlike Malraux, Damisch took real objects and played with them in the same manner: by displaying them on the floor. This leads us to his second inspiration: 2. Bataille (p. 79): -Bataille’s idea of modernism as a way of “precipitating” or depreciating the world: -“To precipitate” refers to a downward movement: to hasten, to rain, to snow. -Bataille – Bois & Krauss – Manet’s Olympia – Pollock -Damisch’s precipitates; declassifies, brings things down to a horizontal plane: He places the works that use to hang on the walls onto a chessboard surface. -The work of taxonomy is given a new life.

D. Damisch’s Arguments in Relation to Curating: • Like Lyotard, Damisch thought deeply about curating. • He made 2 crucial observations when it comes to curating: 1 s t Observation: All museum visitors play a chess game with exhibitions -Example: if you prefer abstract expressionism to conceptual art, you will tend to -Move quickly in galleries containing works by Kosuth -Slow down in galleries containing work by Pollock. -However, your moves will also be dictated by: -Causal factors (your socio-cultural make-up is identical to the prescribed move of particular pawns on the chessboard) -Contingent factors (the unknown manner in which you will move). 2 n d Observation: All museum works of art play a chess game with exhibitions -Example: Man Ray’s piece Obstruction (1920), made up of hangers, is always located according to a particular history (surrealism), a particular environment (what the galleries allow), a particular context (the extend of the museum’s collection). -However, the work, by being placed in different contexts, will also be dictated by: -Causal factors (what is placed alongside it) -Contingent factors (the unknown manner it will come to be shown)

• In order to exploit these three aspects of museums, Damisch came up not only with the chess board and deck of cards metaphor.

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Conclusion: • Dismiss a few misunderstandings about the show: 1. Damisch’s chess game does not stage a conflict between 2 sides: there are no winners. → The title of the project is “moves,” not “win or loose.” The emphasis is therefore on the apparent and not-so-apparent moves that take place in museums (viewers and artworks) → With this title, Damisch offers a deal: “this is what the Van Beuningen museum is all about – Now it’s up to you.” In this way, his deals are: -A game of chess made up of specific pawns frozen at a strategic moment. -A set of cards made up of drawings for the viewer to combine 2. Damisch does not pretend to give the viewers the freedom of playing a game of chess or cards with the masterpieces from the Boijmans’s collection. → The aim was to address choice, not freedom to do anything one pleases. -The viewers could not move the pieces, but they could move through the chessboard -In doing so, they positioned themselves strategically in relation to other works: there was no linear path, no sequential numbering, viewers were necessarily performing a chess move: straight, oblique, crooked. → The choice thus rests as much on the curator than the viewer: curating is an event of knowledge.

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3. Seminar Exercise: Map an exhibition entitled The Artist as Cartographer • Working Title: The Artist as Cartographer • 9 Works that address the issue of mapping. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Robert Mitchell, The Rotonda, Leicester Square, 1801 (Drawing, 75x32cm) J.M.W. Turner, Rome from the Vatican, 1820 (Oil on Canvas, 177x335 cm) Guy Debord, Psychogeographic Map, 1956 (Paper, 58x73 cm) Jonathan Parsons, Zoned Out, 2004 (Freestanding dissected map in acrylic case 68x68x68 cm) Gordon Matta-Clark, Office Baroque, 1977 (Wood, nails, plaster, 38 x 149 x 228 cm) Simon Patterson, The Great Bear, 1992 (Lithograph on paper image, 102 x 128 cm) Jahn Meurs, DNA Helix, 2009 Carl Sagan, NASA Pioneer Spacecraft, Plaque, 1972 (Gold-anodized aluminum, 22 x 15 cm) Jack Kirby, The Fantastic Four, 1961 (Drawing, 32 x 32 cm)

• Constraints of space: Teyler's Museum, Haarlem, The Netherlands

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