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Publication

(Psychic) Subtext(s): A Curatorial Research Project on Allan Sekula’s Ship of Fools / The Dockers’ Museum (2010–2013)

Book - Dissertation

(Psychic) Subtext(s): A Curatorial Research Project on Allan Sekula's Ship of Fools / The Dockers' Museum (2010-2013) KU Leuven faculty: Faculty of Arts, Supervisor(s): Prof. dr. Hilde Van Gelder (Research unit Art History, KU Leuven); Co-supervisors: dr. Mieke Bleyen (until 2018) (KU Leuven), dr. Edwin Carels (University College Ghent / School of Arts / M HKA) Doctoral degree title: PhD in Art History (Curatorial Research) This PhD trajectory in Curatorial Research inscribes itself within a larger research project: Art Against the Grain of "Collective Sisyphus": The Case of Allan Sekula's 'Ship of Fools / The Dockers' Museum' (2010-2013), jointly developed by KU Leuven, Lieven Gevaert Research Centre for Photography, Art and Visual Culture and M HKA, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen. It focuses on the final, unfinished and variably installable work Ship of Fools / The Dockers' Museum (2010-2013) by US artist, writer, critic and activist Allan Sekula (1951-2013). This work is now part of M HKA's collection. One of the principal aims of the Curatorial Research trajectory is to activate and disseminate The Dockers' Museum within different spaces, i.e. to display and disclose selected objects in meaningful ways, through a succession of displays, on the one hand, and through a digital platform, as well as a written component on the other. How to productively deal with the bulk of press photographs, which represents a substantial amount of 'objects' within The Dockers' Museum (which may be traced back to press archives, i.e. their respective copyright holders), while reflecting on the notion of the dispositif, as well as on Sekula's montage principle? And, more broadly speaking, how does Sekula's Ship of Fools / The Dockers' Museum affect today's museum practices of collection conservation, disclosure and display? Here, questions intrinsic to the work will be revisited, such as the question of authorship, agency, irony and of roles. The project evolves in a succession of intermediary steps, scheduled to unfold over the course of the research trajectory, building up towards the final PhD results: an exhibition of Ship of Fools / The Dockers' Museum, to be inaugurated at M HKA in 2020, accompanied by a written component.
Publication year:2020
Accessibility:Closed