The Exhibitionist:
Journal on Exhibition Making—The First Six Years
Book launch: Thursday, May 25, 2017, 7pm
Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art
102 Franklin Street
New York
rsvp [at] swissinstitute.net
The Exhibitionist: Journal on Exhibition Making—The First Six Years is an anthology of the first 12 issues of The Exhibitionist. Established in 2009 as a forum for critical reflection on exhibition making and curatorial practice, The Exhibitionist defines itself as “by curators, for curators.” Modeled after the iconic French film journal Cahiers du cinéma, The Exhibitionist has served a critical role in examining current curatorial practices by focusing specifically on the exhibition format as a site of experimentation and inquiry. The Exhibitionist has historicized, analyzed, and critiqued a phenomenon of which it is itself symptomatic: the rise of the curator since the 1960s, the ensuing explosion of curatorial creativity, and the growing fascination with the discipline of curating.
Over the six years of its printed run, The Exhibitionist published writings by many of the most prominent voices in the field—a veritable who’s who of curatorial practice: Okwui Enwezor, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Mary Jane Jacob, Nato Thompson, Jessica Morgan, Maria Lind, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, and Massimiliano Gioni, to name just a very select few. Published by The Exhibitionist in collaboration with Distributed Art Publishers, this monumental omnibus edition (clocking in at 975 pages) includes the entire printed run of the journal, a new introduction by founding editor Jens Hoffmann, and a critical approach to a theory of the exhibition by senior editor Julian Myers-Szupinska. The Exhibitionist: Journal on Exhibition Making—The First Six Years is available here.
With this volume’s publication, The Exhibitionist closes the chapter of its existence in print and shifts its activities to its newly redesigned website, the-exhibitionist.com. Published on a rolling basis, new texts will populate some familiar and some new departments: “Assessments,” “Dialogue and Discourse,” “Curator’s Favorites,” “Rear Mirror,” and “Rigorous Research.”
The first round will include contributions by Oliver Basciano, Fernanda Brenner, Maria do Carmo M. P. de Pontes, Laura Hoptman, Carol Yinghua Lu, Sohrab Mohebbi, Aram Moshayedi, Pavel Pyś, Molly Superfine, Kate Sutton, and Nataša Ilić and Sabina Sabolović of the curatorial collective What, How & for Whom (WHW).
Founding Editor: Jens Hoffmann
Senior Editor: Julian Myers-Szupinska
Managing Editor: Liz Rae Heise-Glass
Editor at Large: Piper Marshall
Copy Editor: Lindsey Westbrook
Art Director: Jon Sueda / Stripe
Contributing Exhibitionists: Carla Acevedo-Yates, Diana Campbell Betancourt, Fernanda Brenner, Reem Fadda, Carol Yinghua Lu, Chus Martínez, João Ribas, Astria Suparak, Emiliano Valdés
All-Star Exhibitionists: Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Okwui Enwezor, Massimiliano Gioni, Mary Jane Jacob, Maria Lind, Jessica Morgan, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Adriano Pedrosa
Join us for the book launch:
Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art
Thursday, May 25, 7pm
The book launch will feature:
Jens Hoffmann on “The Dirty Dozen: Six Years of The Exhibitionist”
Amara Antilla on “The History of the History of Exhibitions”
Piper Marshall in conversation with Ruba Katrib, Mia Locks,and Lauren Cornell on “Future Histories of Curating”
Please RSVP to rsvp [at] swissinstitute.net. Please note: capacity for this event is limited, and only confirmed guests will be admitted.
The new the-exhibitionist.com will also launch on May 25, and will continue the activities of the journal online.