Roxanne L. Euben’s Journeys to the Other Shore: Muslim and Western Travelers in Search of Knowledge changed how I read and taught.[1] Drawing on the etymology of ‘theory’, which relates to contemplation, speculation ( theōria ) and ultimately spectatorship ( theōros ), another semantic parallel between Arabic and Greek struck me, since the Arabic, naẓariyya , likewise connects with notions of looking and speculation. That we often read and speak of theories as ‘lenses’ is appropriate, then, and here I’d like to reflect on the place of theory in museological practices and the ways that the metaphor of theory-as-seeing could be recast. How far do theories inform how curators stage exhibitions and what place do they have for visitors? Considering the catalogues for the National Gallery’s Michelangelo and Sebastiano , the Tate Modern’s Agnes Martin and the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Cy Twombly: Fifty Days at Iliam , they present and b...
What’s the effect of curating a show by an artist of such rarefied means? Does it simplify the exercise, because painting is all she’s got (the odd sculptural object besides)? Does it raise new challenges, because, formally speaking, most of her canvases are all of a type (the early biomorphic abstractions and pre-grid works besides)? How do you engage a broad and varied audience within such parameters, and with an artist who was so (a) abstract (‘there’s nothing to see’), (b) minimalist (‘did she do anything different?’), and (c) expressive (an absence of narrative is cause for anxiety, I might argue, in today’s rationally inclined climate, so sceptical of articulations of sensibility and emotional response). These are some of the questions that come to mind as I sit to write my first blog piece on the Agnes Martin retrospective, which I visited perhaps ten times or more over the course of this summer. I was ineluctably and automatically affected by the works on display—and perhaps ...
Visiting this made this morning utterly worthwhile and immeasurably inspiring. It's exhausting, unnervingly despondent at points and, for all that, happily provocative. I was accompanied by my best friend, some of whose commentary I'll include in this entry for its trenchant observations. Arriving early meant we were among the first crush to enter the galleries, but that was no surprise given the breadth of publicity that has been spinning around The Ladder of Escape . I took some notes, thought a lot, chattered a little, and lamented at not being able to take photographs or make a video. This aside, I was there, and here is what I have to say about it; I'll use the three questions I've mentioned in earlier posts to structure the entry. Curation + Implied narrative/s There are over 160 pieces in the 13 galleries making up The Ladder of Escape which include painting, drawing and sculpture; an array of supports across canvas, velours paper, Masonite an...
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