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role was assigned to the curator – much to the chagrin of many artists. For example, nearly 40 years after his first critique on the curator’s role, Daniel Buren revisited his considerations from 1972 once again in 2000 with his essay “Where Are the Artists?”20 He called for the curator at art events like the documenta to be replaced by the artist in an effort to reject the role of the artist as an interpreter of thematic guidelines dictated by a curator. This development was accompanied by the explosive proliferation of texts about curators and curating.21 The magazine The Exhibitionist – edited by curator Jens Hoffmann – focuses exclusively on curatorial practice. The Journal of Curatorial Studies should also be mentioned here, as should curating studies, which have assumed a sometimes disproportionately important position, compared with the study of art history as a basis for this. On the other, the abolition of traditional aesthetic criteria and the gradual disappearance of a critical discourse, which has been replaced by hagiographic texts, are the direct result of the described changes in the art world. Benjamin Buchloh talks about the capitulation of art criticism with respect to the museum and the trustees, i.e., with respect to the power and institutionalization of the art market.22 Devoid of any nostalgia, he articulates a perception shared by many: the necessity of a new reflection on the evaluation criteria of artistic works and practices, which – if they exist at all – are often superseded by ethical judgments. A shift toward political correctness and a social commitment in art led many critics to replace the earlier criteria of art critical assessment with ethical standards, in which “insistence” in one’s commitment is of paramount importance. Just as ethical issues have always been part of artistic work, formal, aesthetic, conceptual, and intellectual aspects are also important when considering an art experiment, regardless of how it is constructed and what message it conveys, to which it is also not to be reduced. In recent years, several major changes have taken place in art. Foremost among these are the changes resulting from media and technological developments. Digitization, the Internet, and virtual realities have rendered the definition of photography as “photo” obsolete, as well as the autonomy of media such as film or video. Rosalind Krauss uses the concept of a “post-media”23 era to describe the new situation of art, which has not only lost its autonomy, but which has also abandoned the earlier impermeability of media categories that are now often combined by artists. This technological revolution also led to a complete transformation of artistic networks, an unprecedented compression of time and space and to a greater mobility for artists. New artistic practices have emerged. More than ever before, sound24 is now used as an independent material for installations. Artists benefit from new technologies that allow them to program tone sequences on the computer, often in conjunction with imagery. Entire exhibitions – considered by some as a separate medium – can be developed as a loop; one only needs to think of works by Philippe Parreno and Anri Sala. In the past 30 years, art and the nature of the artist have changed fundamentally. It is this change that the exhibition A History explores. It does not, however, pursue a chronological or thematic concept in the narrow sense. It rather essentially aims at a deeper analysis of what now constitutes artistic activities, beyond national art scenes or specific cultural areas. In the global art of today there are, despite all particularisms, certain “lines of force” that are related to the
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