Paula Zambrano

Historically, curating has been about articulating the ideology, aesthetic values and history of a culture as truth. Throughout Western history, the museum has come to signify a place of learning and authority. Contemporary curating, however, has thrown this objectivity into question: the artist and curator have challenged the concrete and linear nature of historical narratives told through exhibitions in the relationship of works of art. Exhibitions are now widely considered to be subjective, temporary arrangements, but maintain a sense of the order of things through the authority of the individual curator. In short, there is the suggestion of a logic in how art appears in the gallery, and with it a sense of belief in this higher order. 

In this dissertation I  explored recent exhibitions that proposed alternatives to this human centred, subjective arrangement of works of art through contingent means. Through these case studies I considered how the ideology of exhibitions themselves has shifted to a contemporary perspective where culture, history and belief is increasingly seen as a set of relationships where human agency is no longer the central consideration.