Curatorial experimentation

From Conceptualism to Feminism: Lucy Lippard’s Numbers Shows 1969–74

These four exhibitions of contemporary art curated by Lucy Lippard, known as her ‘numbers shows’, mark Lippard’s curatorial trajectory, her transition from a writer about art to a maker of exhibitions, and her growing political engagement and involvement with feminism.

‘Op Losse Schroeven’ and ‘When Attitudes Become Form’ 1969

Two landmark exhibitions in 1969, ‘Op Losse Schroeven’ and ‘When Attitudes Become Form’, publicly introduced the ‘new art’ of the 1960s, bringing together Arte Povera, Conceptual and Land art whilst introducing new curatorial approaches.

The 24th Bienal de São Paolo, 1998

The 1998 Bienal de São Paulo remade art history from a Brazilian perspective, and presented a new model for exhibition-making in the era of post-colonial globalisation. The show employed the Brazilian notion of anthropophagy as both concept and method, encouraging ‘contamination’ and ‘cannibalisation’ of the canon, alongside an expanded understanding of its pedagogic function for the integration of art, culture and political history.

‘an Exhibit’ 1957 and Related Projects

‘an Exhibit’ emerged from a decade of testing the formats and possibilities of exhibition-making. A collaboration between two artists, Richard Hamilton and Victor Pasmore, and critic Lawrence Alloway, the show was simultaneously an investigation into abstract environmental forms and a participatory experiment that would fundamentally transform the role of the viewer.

APTART 1982–84

A collective of artists, a gallery and a movement, APTART was a series of self-organised ‘anti-shows’ that took place in a private apartment and outdoor spaces in Moscow between 1982 and 1984. These covert and anarchic actions, which soon came into conflict with the Soviet authorities, represent a collective attempt to rethink the politics of exhibition-making and the practice of making public in the absence of a public sphere.

‘Culture in Action’ 1993

A show challenging conventional understandings of public art, ‘Culture in Action’ in Chicago had a new social agenda, and reworked what an exhibition of contemporary art might be. Through eight projects by artists, initiated in the early 1990s and developed in collaboration with local people, the intention was to engage diverse groups over time, in addition to the visiting public in 1993.