We are the Center for Curatorial Studies

Artists include: 
Can Altay, Martin Beck, David Blamey, Gerard Byrne, Nina Canell, Jasmina Cibic, Céline Condorelli, Sara Cwynar, Marjolijn Dijkman, Mary Heilmann, James Hoff, Vlatka Horvat, Matt Keegan, Chris Kraus, Gareth Long, Ronan McCrea, William McKeown, Ulrike Müller, Museum of American Art Berlin, Brian O’Doherty, Harold Offeh, Eduardo Padilha, Sarah Pierce, Falke Pisano, Elizabeth Price, Richard Venlet, Anton Vidokle, Lawrence Weiner, Grace Weir, Arseny Zhilyaev, and others.

Curated by Paul O’Neill, Director of the Graduate Program, We are the Center for Curatorial Studies is both an exhibition and research project, a multi-year program incorporating artist projects, exhibitions, collaborations, and public and non-public programs.

We are the Center for Curatorial Studies perceives curating as a series of actions leading toward the emergence of an eventual exhibition-form. Its first iteration comprises a selection of extant artworks, new commissions, and ongoing art projects in a display relating to the “exhibitionary” and the “curatorial.” More than 30 works will be on view, acting as a catalyst for discussions, public presentations, and teaching—shaping the core activities of CCS Bard and its graduate program. During this initial phase, artists will also spend time at CCS Bard teaching, lecturing, and developing projects with the graduate program and its students. 

We are the Center for Curatorial Studies is constructed around six main speculative “Departments” entitled: The Department of Information (The Textual Core); The Department of Display (The Operational Core); The Department of Things (The Object Core); The Department of Images (The Visual Core); The Department of Waiting (The Attending Core); and The Department of Events (The Discursive Core).

These Departments intersect with one another to make up the content and structure of We are the Center for Curatorial Studies. Each will challenge the ways in which an exhibition gathers its form through a deep consideration of the juxtaposition of subjects, things, images, information, structures, and/or display spaces.

During the first phase, artist, writer, and filmmaker Chris Kraus will begin a unique set of 18 short stories/texts for each gallery of the Hessel Museum of Art. These texts will act as prompts, persuasions, and parallel meditation for the other artworks on exhibition. Sarah Pierce will lead The Department of Information, spending three months at CCS Bard thinking through ideas of “greatness” and its meanings while delving into the archives and displaying her own archival-based work. Further contributors include the Museum of American Art Berlin, Martin Beck, Jasmina Cibic, Brian O’Doherty, and Lawrence Weiner—all working with(in) archives, or drawing upon curatorial material and exhibition histories.

The Department of Display (The Operational Core) explores spatial design and the architectonics of exhibition-making. Marjolijn Dijkman’s spatial interventions will explore the prominent role played by modernism in display systems and museum exhibition techniques. Céline Condorelli’s adaptive support structure black drapes All Our Tomorrows will wrap the public intermittently, installed and reinstalled at variant intervals for the duration of the exhibition. Can Altay will produce three related spatial thresholds to break up the gallery entry spaces and will provide immersive walkways for the viewer. Richard Venlet will contribute a slowly evolving site-specific floor intervention, acting as another exhibition space within and across the Hessel Museum galleries.

Although many of the artworks on display move between departments, the Department of Things (The Object Core) will include ongoing temporal sculptures and adaptive evolving objects by Nina Canell, Marjolijn Dijkman, Vlatka Horvat, and Ronan McCrea. The Department of Images (The Visual Core) will begin with a series of exploratory films and expanding image-based projects by Gerard Byrne, Sara Cwynar, James Hoff, Matt Keegan, Gareth Long, Falke Pisano, Elizabeth Price, Grace Weir, and others.

The Department of Waiting (The Attending Core) will involve artist “waiting rooms” or gallery gestures attending towards the act of “waiting.” Artist interventions and on-going relational artworks by Jasmina Cibic, Mary Heilmann, Gareth Long, Ulrike Müller, Eduardo Padilha, and William McKeown, will define intermediary, and transitional sites of expectation. These waiting rooms and display spaces remain “in-progress” and await a future exhibition—functioning also as “pop-up” teaching and conversation sites.

Finally, The Department of Events (The Discursive Core) forms the basis of The Visitor Talks Program at CCS Bard. Exhibiting artists will contribute, alongside additional invited speakers, including David Blamey, Harold Offeh, Anton Vidokle, and Arseny Zhilyaev. Visitor Talks begin at 5pm on scheduled evenings at CCS Bard and are open to the public. For the full schedule of the Visitor Talks please see www.bard.edu/ccs.

Additionally, opening on November 11, from 6–8pm, and continuing until December 22, the project extends to the Lower East Side gallery P! (334 Broome Street, New York, NY 10002) with We are the (Epi)center…, a two-month project that proposes new directions for an institution of curatorial practice through short-term exhibitions, public events, performances, seminars, pop-up displays, and other programs developed in collaboration with artists and students from the graduate program at CCS Bard.

Exhibition identity and collateral materials designed by the London-based design practice Julia.

Exhibitions at CCS Bard are made possible with support from the Marieluise Hessel Foundation, the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Foundation, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, the Board of Governors of the Center for Curatorial Studies, the CCS Bard Arts Council, and the Center’s Patrons, Supporters, and Friends. Additional support was given by Culture Ireland.

The CCS Bard Galleries and Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College are open Thursday through Sunday from 11am to 6pm. All CCS Bard exhibitions and public programs are free and open to the public.

Limited seating is available on a free chartered bus from New York City for the October 15 opening. Reservations are required; call T (845) 758 7598 or email ccs [​at​] bard.edu.