An essay-length book arguing for the autonomy of art in the present

Curating has evolved into much more than creating interesting exhibitions, promoting artists, and selling artwork. Art worlds have fused with business worlds and transformed capitalism from the inside out. To “curate capitalism” implies new ways of management that go far beyond the simple commercialization of art and artist.

In The Curatorial Condition, Beatrice von Bismarck considers the field of activity and knowledge that relates to the exhibiting of art and culture. The curatorial, in her analysis, is a domain of practice and meaning with its own conditions, rules, and procedures.

In this book, the renowned art historian and writer maps the institutional and quasi-institutional framework for contemporary art that sprawls across the globe. He then delves into a powerful form of curatorial activism rising up in the exhibitionary complex: Open Strike.

A compelling rethinking of curatorial practice that proposes that Pidgin languages and pidginization offer a decolonialized reinvention of communicative practices; a space in which the boundaries between disciplines of knowledge collapse and sociopolitical, economic, ethical, and spiritual concepts and questions are renegotiated.