An exhibition is a grouping of objects gathered temporarily together in a particular physical space. The visitor encounters forms; artefacts brought together in the same space and time. This circumstance enables the visitor to walk through the space creating itineraries, and allows a direct, although mediated encounter between their body and the objects. An exhibition is also a dispositif where things can unfold and overflow, also in the same spatial and temporal framework. The polysemic Spanish word ensayo refers both to a text –a reflexive or discursive literary work– and to an initial effort or attempt, an experimental process. The title El ensayo de la exposición 1977-2017 thus refers to two meanings of the same object: the exhibition as a place where thinking is produced, but also as a field where things can be tested out.
The symposium on curating El ensayo de la exposición (1977-2017) –freely translated in English as The Papers of the Exhibition (1977-2017)– consisted of five meetings held between 2016 and 2023 in Azkuna Zentroa – Alhóndiga Bilbao. The aim of the meetings was to study exhibitions held in a period spanning forty years. They involved more than thirty readings of as many exhibitions from recent history, enabling an approach to different aspects of the exhibition: a cultural object that reflects and reacts to the historical conditions in which it takes place; an institutional form that legitimises the representations it includes; an ephemeral device that can generate interruptions and cause moments of attention…
Participants in the symposium: Isabel de Naverán, Isabella Maidment, Aurora Fernández Polanco, Luca Frei, Carla Zaccagnini, João Fernandes, Tamara Díaz Bringas, Bojana Kunst, Dora García, Carles Guerra, Franco Berardi “Bifo”, Adrian Heathfield, Aimar Arriola, Rachel Weiss, Joaquín Vázquez, Ines Schaber, Corinne Diserens, Catherine David, Alejandro Alonso Díaz, Amaia Sánchez Sampedro, Anita Orzes, Marion Cruza Le Bihan, Mirtes Marins de Oliveira, Sheila Portilla Prado, Ana Dević, Yaiza Hernández Velázquez, Lisette Lagnado, Maria Lind, Ruth Noack, Azucena Vieites, Peio Aguirre, Ieva Astahovska, Carmiña Dovale Carrión, Jone Alaitz Uriarte, McKenzie Wark, Azar Mahmoudian, Arantza Santesteban, Anik Fournier, Sagal Farah, Graeme Thomson y Silvia Maglioni, Uxue Pellejero, Andrea Rodrigo, Anja Isabel Schneider.
