Storia delle mostre e pratiche di allestimento

By taking into examination some examples of exhibitions from the 1960s to 2000s, the course investigates the role of exhibitions as a critical device and content production tool, analysing how display practices are continually evolving and dialogue with the works themselves. This leads to reflection on how display dynamics spark a complex relationship between artist, exhibition space and curator.

The course will teach basic display notions, with relative references as to what is meant by the correct layout and communication of the works. It will go into technical aspects, such as the management of the physical space in the exhibition, critical aspects such as the kind of explanatory texts that present a work, and phenomenological aspects, such as the importance of constantly remodelling the sense of a work as a function of its display. At the end of the three days, a piece of group work will be proposed to round off the course: to build and try out some types of display in class with works by artists working with different languages.

An extensive bibliography will also be provided of both the theoretical and museographical references made during the course and of works dealing with the recent developments in curatorship practices and ways of dialoguing with artists.