TRACES: Transcultural curating in global contexts

Barbara Lutz in conversation with Felix Vogel

The cultural scientist Dr. Barbara Lutz (Berlin/Kassel) presents her recently published book "Transkulturelle Ausstellungspraxis - Kuratieren in globalen Zusammenhängen. A praxeological analysis of documenta 12". In the subsequent conversation, she will discuss with Prof. Dr. Felix Vogel (University of Kassel, documenta Institute) the resulting implications for the research of large-scale exhibitions as well as for their production and mediation practice.

In the book, published by transcript Verlag, Barbara Lutz examines the paradigm of transculturality from a cultural studies perspective and relates it to exhibition practice in global art contexts. With the question of how (trans)cultural interdependencies of art can be exhibited, the twelfth installment of documenta (2007) is examined, which, with its concept of the migration of form, brought cultural and aesthetic interdependencies into focus. Previous methods of exhibition analysis are expanded to include a praxeological cultural analysis, which is applied here to the practical dimensions of artifacts, discourses and modes of subjectivation. With this well-founded analysis, Barbara Lutz also shows how transculturality can be made productive for exhibition and mediation practice in general. She thus points the way for museums and other exhibition institutions that face up to processes of decolonization.