Publication details
Scenotecture: between scenography and exhibition architecture
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| Citation | |
| Description | This conference paper deals with the scenography approach to the physical representation of art exhibitions in the Czech Republic that are being realized by contemporary visual artists. After a brief outline of the specifics of the field of "exhibition scenography" as were anchored mainly through the activities of the national enterprise “Výstavnictví” in the 1960s and 1970s in former Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the paper focuses on later disruption of this field and gradual establishment of the field of "exhibition architecture" after 1989. Followingly, the paper will introduce selected art exhibitions (of mainly permanent collections) and their spatial solutions which might be considered as a peculiar artistic-interpretive layer oscillating between authorial gesture and utilitarian service. As I propose, those cases better fit into the rank of "scenography" rather than "architecture" despite the fact the term "exhibition scenography" is almost not in use any more in Czechia. Specifically, I will introduce such exhibitions that were spatially prepared by artists who, apparently due to the lack of institutional exhibition support after 1989, also started to work as creators of exhibition environments next to their fine art practices. As I suggest, those artists such as Dominik Lang, Tomas Svoboda or Zbyněk Baladran began to bring specific qualities to exhibition-making, more or less intuitively, that are close to scenography in the general sense of this discipline. Chosen examples of such exhibition spaces will also demonstrate how scenographic approach co-creates the whole curatorial concept. |