Exhibition-ism Temporal Togetherness

Consideration of recent shows of Mieke Bal's video work, framed by observations on contemporary sculpture's response to classics of the form.

In Exhibition-ism, theorist and artist Mieke Bal develops the idea that exhibiting is a significant form of the contemporary. In an exhibition, visitors are in the actual company of artworks that can perform. This book considers recent shows of Bal's own video work, and is framed by observations on contemporary sculpture's response to classics of the form. Looking at art as process, Bal makes the case that the being-together-in-time of an exhibition visit encourages and, if the curation is well-thought-out, can heighten the sense of the contemporaneity--art being more capable of this than anything else.

Cultural theorist, critic, video artist, and curator Mieke Bal focuses on gender, migratory culture, psychoanalysis, and the critique of capitalism. Her forty-one books include a trilogy on political art. Emma & Edvard Looking Sideways: Loneliness and the Cinematic (2017) demonstrates her integrated approach to academic, artistic, and curatorial work. After documentaries on migratory culture, she made "theoretical fictions": A Long History of Madness, and Madame B, with Michelle Williams Gamaker. Her film Reasonable Doubt, on René Descartes and Queen Christina, explores the social aspects of thinking (2016).] Currently she is exhibiting a sixteen-channel video work Don Quixote: Sad Countenances.