A Critical Analysis Of An Art Exhibition

Write a critical analysis of an art exhibition you have seen, from the point of view of its curatorship. Consider one or more of the following issues: modes of display, censorship, ethics, interpretation, beauty, or the specific issues involved in curating design or film. Art galleries (public and private) spend billions of pounds each year conserving and collecting objects and their associated histories, ideas and stories. After researching the messages it has carefully crafted, the gallery then passes interpretative authority to the visitor, who is free 'to make up "whatever" stories they please'. The term "whatever" was coined by Cheryl Meszaros in her 2006 article 'Now THAT is Evidence: Tracking Down the Evil "Whatever" Interpretation', she argues that the "whatever" interpretation is championed as the best result of an art gallery visit despite the fact that visitors' stories may or may not have anything to do with the intended messages of the display. As a result, the gallery (public and private) justifies its failure to communicate and, by extension, absolves itself of 'any interpretative responsibility for the meanings it produces and circulates in culture'. Through two current Edinburgh exhibitions, 'ABJAD' at Ingleby Gallery and 'Possibilities of the Object: Experiments in Modern and Contemporary Art', this paper will illustrate how the absolution of interpretative responsibility is produces and is produced by the "whatever". I will argue that although