Contemporary Condition 15 – Exhibition-ism: Temporal Togetherness

In Exhibition-ism, theorist and artist Mieke Bal develops the idea that exhibiting is a significant form of the contemporary. In an exhibition, visitors are in the actual company of artworks that can perform. This essay considers recent shows of Bal’s own video work, and is framed by observations on contemporary sculpture’s response to classics of the form. Looking at art as process, Bal makes the case that the being-together-in-time of an exhibition visit encourages and, if the curation is well thought-out, can heighten the sense of the contemporaneity—art being more capable of this than anything else.