All Play and No Work? A ‘Ludistory’ of the Curatorial as Transitional Object at the Early ICA
- Submitting institution
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Royal College of Art(The)
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- Cranfield3
- Type
- D - Journal article
- DOI
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- Title of journal
- Tate Papers
- Article number
- -
- First page
- 1
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- -
- ISSN
- 1753-9854
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2014
- URL
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https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/22
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- Yes
- Additional information
- This single-authored journal article offers an original use of sources in the Institute of Contemporary Arts’ archive to explore the curatorial as an expanded mode of juxtaposition and relationality derived from traditional exhibition curating. The research challenges dominant historically positivist approaches to exhibition history through the innovative use of play as both thematic and method in order to theorize the value of the curatorial as a mode for critical engagement with the contemporary.
The research is significant to the fields of exhibition history and art history, and to curators engaging in archival work. It offers a more generative way of working with archival material than recent written accounts and curated displays of exhibition histories that celebrate, canonize and ‘remember’ the spaces of experimental arts practice in ways that problematically suggest the singularity of such histories through their situation within pre-existing art historical narratives.
The article is published in Tate Papers, a peer-reviewed journal. The research represents a deep engagement with the ICA’s archives, begun as part of my AHRC-funded doctoral work (completed 2010). This article was developed through a conference paper presented at ‘The Ludic Museum’, Tate Liverpool, 2014.
This article develops, with significant additional research, work presented in Cranfield, B. (2013) ‘‘Not Another Museum’: The Search for Contemporary Connection.’ Journal of Visual Culture, 12, 2, 313–331; Cranfield, B. (2012) ‘Between Consensus and Anxiety: Curating Transparency at the ICA of the 1950s’, The Journal of Curatorial Studies, 1, 1, 83–100; Cranfield, B. (2011) ‘Students, Artists and the ICA: the revolution within?’ in Resurgence of the Sixties: The Continuing Relevance of the Cultural and Political Watershed, London and New York: Anthem Press, 82–100; Cranfield, B. (2008) ‘Introduction’ and contributing editor, How Soon Is Now: 60 Years of the ICA, London: ICA and Cornerhouse, submitted for the REF 2014.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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