Olga Fernandez López

Dissenting Exhibitions by Artists (1968–1998)


The goal of my thesis ‘Dissenting Exhibitions by Artists (1968–1998): Reframing Marxist exhibition legacy’ is to look at the critical and dissenting value of exhibitions through the examination of four case studies, based on six exhibitions taking place between 1968 and 1998 in Latin and North America The exhibitions belong to the history of modern and contemporary exhibitions and curating, a field of research and study that has only started to be weitten in the last two decades, This investigation contributes to it, either by creating new genealogies, by connecting them with previously overlooked antecedents, or by proposing new relations within established lineages, at the intersection of a specific historiography to address exhibitions, a tradition of artists acting as curators and an emerging history of curating.


The dissenting value of exhibitions is, in this thesis, closely related to its main features as medium, namely its temporality, heterogeneity and flexibility, which contribute to their potential for creative analysis and propositioning. In the case of these exhibitions, this capability is brought into play for institutional interrogation, for offering alternative cultural narratives and also for inspiring new imaginary realms.