Lecture | MUMA Boiler Room Series: Biljiana Ciric

From a history of exhibitions towards a future of exhibition making

Biljana Ciric

MUMA Boiler Room Series

Convened by Tara McDowell, Associate Professor and Director of Curatorial Practice at Monash University

Shanghai-based independent curator Biljana Ciric presents her research initiative ‘From a history of exhibitions towards a future of exhibition making’ – a series of seminars that revisit the importance of the exhibition as a key factor in relating art to its wider social context. The seminars, taking place in New Zealand, Singapore and China over 2013-2014, focus specifically on the history of exhibitions in China, South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Ciric will discuss this line of enquiry in relation to her recent curatorial projects that have aimed to examine how curatorial practice and the field of exhibition history may complement each other, unfolding complex issues of self-reflection, local knowledge production and its global contribution.

Biljana Ciric has presented projects in the Venice Biennale, Shenzhen/ Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture, MoCA Shanghai, and Guangdong Times Museum. Her ongoing research encompasses institutional critique and artist institutions, and examining the history of exhibitions in relation to a future of exhibition making. Her recent exhibitions include One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, Times Museum, Guangzhou, 2013; Alternatives to Ritual, Goethe Open Space, Shanghai, 2012; Institution for the Future as part of the Asia Triennial, Manchester, 2011; Taking the Stage OVER, a one-year exhibition engaging aspects of live art, Shanghai, 2011. She is a regular contributor to art publications including Broadsheet and Yi Shu Journal. Ciric is co-editor with Sally Lai of the publication Institution for the Future, 2012, with contributions from Tino Sehgal, Dorothea Von Hantellamann, Joao Ribas and Jens Hoffmann among others. Ciric is a member of the jury for the Hugo Boss Asia Award 2013 and has recently been nominated for an ICI Independent Vision Curatorial Award.

The presentation will include a responsive Q&A session convened by Tara McDowell.

Tara McDowell is the newly appointed Associate Professor and Director of Curatorial Practice in the Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture at Monash University in Melbourne. She was Founding Senior Editor of The Exhibitionist, a journal on curatorial practice and exhibition making published by Archive Books in Berlin and distributed by MIT Press. She has held curatorial appointments at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, where she mounted group and solo exhibitions featuring the work of, among others, Yto Barrada, Matthew Buckingham, Amy Franceschini, Robert Gober, Steve McQueen, Wangechi Mutu, Paulina Olowska, Damian Ortega, Doris Salcedo, and Adrian Villar Rojas. McDowell received her BA from Dartmouth College and her MA in Art History from Williams College. She publishes and lectures frequently on a wide range of artists and contemporary art topics, and writes criticism for art-agenda and artforum.com. McDowell holds a PhD in the History of Art from the University of California, Berkeley.

Date: 5.30 - 7.30pm, Tuesday 13 August 2020
Venue: 
The Wheeler Centre, 176 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne

Free event, bookings required: Book now

Presented in association with Monash Art, Design and Architecture