Exposition / Disposition

"New Ways of Exhibiting," "New Institutionalism" and "New Museology" are the keywords of a recent interdisciplinary debate, in which exhibitions and curatorial practice are subjected to a critical review. The exhibition is examined as a place of profane enlightenment, an indicator of the social state, or as a testing ground for social change; the curator's position is analysed as a seeker of truth or in their artistic performance through curatorial actions. This volume responds to the diversity and polarity of new approaches to interpretation with a systematic "exhibition archaeology". Kai-Uwe Hemken shows: The art exhibition is not a purely aesthetic structure, not a mere result of curatorial practice, but rather a process of shaping public opinion, in which structures, dynamics, patterns of action, and role allocations are visualized, reproduced, and ideally questioned. Thus, this volume makes a fundamental contribution to the understanding of contemporary exhibitions.