This edited collection, bringing together art historians and curators working both in the ‘East’ and the ‘West’ of Europe, is a result of a growing interest in the theorisation and historical analysis of feminist curating as a distinct practice with its own transnational history and politics. In most former state-socialist countries of Eastern Europe, the emergence and public visibility of feminist curating and exhibitions usually dates back to the 1990s and is associated with the radical transformation of art practices, ideologies and art systems as well as with wider socio-political and intellectual changes, and challenges, of post-socialist transition. This history, and its legacy, is addressed in this book through national and regional case-studies ranging from the Baltics to the Balkans. An equally significant part of the book is dedicated to the present and future of feminist curating, as well as of other politicised forms of curatorial activities (e.g. queer curating). In addition to the theoretical or historical accounts presented, the collection includes two highly relevant interviews with curators: Bojana Pejic on the block-buster exhibition Gender Check(2009–2010) in Vienna and Warsaw; and Airi Triisberg and Rebeka Põldsam on Untold Stories (2011), the first international queer exhibition in Tallinn, Estonia.

This project sets up to explore the role exhibitions play in writing art histories of East-Central and South-East Europe after 1989. In the past twenty years we have been witnessing the increased role of exhibition as an important art historical instrument. Not only exhibitions are very much part of the art historical discourse but the role of a curator and the curating itself provide very specific models of art historical knowledge. Curated art exhibitions present a new kind of research and in many cases put under question traditional methods of art history. In spatial organization they can confirm dominant narratives or suggest a completely new readings. «East European» art history after 1989 has much to do with exhibition making and the academic art history comes to terms with the role of the exhibition in shaping its course. When talking about «re-writing» or revision of art history in the past twenty years one cannot avoid several landmark exhibitions not only as a contribution but shaping processes. For instance, constitutive for East European art history could be considered the following exhibitions: Europa, Europa (Bonn 1994), Der Riss im Raum (Berlin 1994/95), Aspekte/Positionen - 50 Jahre Kunst aus Mitteleuropa 1949-1999 (Vienna 1999), After the Wall: Art and Culture in post-communist Europe (Stockholm 1999/2000), 2000+ARTEAST Collection, Ljubljana (Innsbruck 2000/2001), Ausgeträumt ... (Vienna 2001/2002), In Search of Balkania (Graz 2002), In the Gorges of the Balkan. A Report (Kassel 2003), Blood and Honey: the Future's in the Balkans (Vienna 2003), Kontakt ... aus der Sammlung der Erste Bank-Gruppe (Vienna 2006), Interrupted Histories (Ljubljana 2006), Cold War Modern. Design 1945-1970 (London 2008/2009), Gender Check. Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe (Vienna 2009/2010), Promises of the Past. A Discontinuous History of Art in Former Eastern Europe (Paris 2010), on the eastern front ... (Budapest, Warsaw 2010), Erased Walls (Poznan 2011), Museum of Parallel Narratives (Barcelona, 2011), Ostalgia (New York, 2011), Museum of Affects, The Present and Presence (MSUM Ljubljana, 2011), RearviewMirror: New Art From Central and Eastern Europe (Toronto, Alberta, 2011-12), Spirits of Internationalism (Eindhoven, Antwerp, 2012), etc. Surely, many different exhibitions could be put on the list. Moreover, East European art has been exhibited in the global context (Global Conceptualism, New York 1999, Global Feminisms, New York, 2007) or within different biennials around the world (not only Venice Biennial and Documenta but Istanbul, Tirana, Prague and of course Manifesta). Crucial for this book project is mapping changes and transformations of the exhibition discourse via different kinds of curated exhibitions: inside and outside of museum/gallery space, in alternative spaces, within biennials or collaborative projects. The exhibition as a medium, a site of experiment or a platform of a paradigm shift is going to be examined and critically reflected. Not only exhibition formats, structures, models, concepts, genres or topics but different curatorial approaches and curatorial experiences will be the valuable part of this project.

Exhibitionary spaces and curatorial strategies ideologically frame the encounter between art and its publics. For more than forty years, feminist art curating, as a practice of art interpretation and a politics of display, has intersected with the diverse area of feminist art historical research and feminist artistic practices. It is only recently, however, that a theorization of feminist art curating and feminist exhibition histories as a specific field of knowledge has emerged.Curating Differently is a collection of essays that offers critical perspectives on, and analyses of, the intersections of feminisms, art exhibitions, and curatorial spaces from the 1970s onward. It brings together case studies from Australia, Israel, Europe, and North America that critically account for diverse strategies and interventions in curatorial space. The essays contribute with historical perspectives on feminist exhibition practices and curatorial models and first-hand accounts of feminist interventions within the art museum, as well as timely analyses of current intersections of feminisms within curating in the contemporary global art world.As a major contribution to the ongoing scholarly debate on the institutionalization of feminisms in art and its relative success, or failure, Curating Differently will provide new insights and provoke further discussion on the history and theory of feminist art exhibitions and curatorial spaces.

'Gender Check' is the first comprehensive exhibition featuring art from Eastern Europe since the 1960s based on the theme of gender roles. 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the curator Bojana Pejic, along with a team of experts from 24 different countries, has put together a selection of over 400 works including paintings, sculpture, installations, photography, posters, films and videos. With over 200 artists, the exhibition paints an exceptionally diverse picture of a chapter in art history that until recently had been largely unknown and that could also act as an important addition to contemporary gender discourse.

Gender Check is the first comprehensive exhibition featuring art from Eastern Europe since the 1960s based on the theme of gender roles. 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the curator Bojana Peji?, along with a team of experts from 24 different countries, has put together a selection of over 400 works including paintings, sculpture, installations, photography, posters, films and videos. With over 200 artists, the exhibition paints an exceptionally diverse picture of a chapter in art history that until recently had been largely unknown and that could also act as an important addition to contemporary gender discourse. Published on the occasion of the exhibition in 2009/10 at Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, and at Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw. English text.

What makes curating feminist organizing? How do curators relate to contemporary feminist concerns in their local conditions and the globalized artworld? The book brings together twenty curatorial case studies from diverse regions of the globe. Reflecting their own curatorial projects or analyzing feminist-inspired exhibitions, the authors in this book elaborate feminist curating as that which is inspired to challenge gender politics not only within but also beyond the doors of the museum and gallery. Connecting their wider feminist politics to their curatorial practices, the book provides case studies of curatorial practice that address the legacies of racialized and ethnic violence, including colonialism; which seek to challenges the state's regulation of citizenship and sexuality; and which realize the drive for economic justice in the organizations and roles in which curators work. The settings in which this work is done range from university art galleries to artist-run spaces and educational or activist programmes. This collection will be enjoyed by those studying and researching curating, exhibitions, socially and ecologically engaged contemporary art practices, and feminist transnational movements in diverse geographic contexts. The essays are of relevance to practicing curators, critical cultural practitioners, and artists.

The first anthology of feminist art exhibition essays and museum publications, providing an exciting and valuable overview of recent developments in feminist curation Feminisms-Museums-Surveys: Exhibition Curating 2005-2022 brings together works from exhibition catalogs and museum publications to provide a comprehensive and timely view of the modern approach to feminist curating. Offering insights into how curators from around the world engage with different feminisms and select and exhibit feminist art, this one-of-a-kind anthology exemplifies the diversity of feminist thinking and curatorial approaches in the contemporary art museum. This important volume comprises articles and essays drawn from publications which accompanied major curatorial projects from different regions around the globe, and each essay offers a unique critical interpretation of feminist art. Organized chronologically, the book presents the essays -- the majority in print for the first time since their initial publications and some for the first time in English -- with the dates and venues of the exhibition and a brief introduction by the editors. All the artists in the exhibitions and the curators involved are indexed in the supplementary material. Making key examples of feminist curating easily accessible to a wider audience of scholars and students, this unique anthology: Offers a transnational perspective on feminist curating, featuring exhibitions from across Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Americas Highlights the diverse ways in which curators have attempted to bring feminist theory into the museum exhibition format Illustrates how feminist ideas have evolved in diverse ways in the international community of museum professionals Includes an index of artists and curators whose work is represented in the volume Offering deep insights into how curators have approached the documentation and representation of art informed by feminist politics and thinking, Feminisms-Museums-Surveys: Exhibition Curating 2005-2022 is an ideal resource for courses in feminism and art, curation, LGBTQ art, art and politics, museum studies, art history, cultural studies, feminist and gender studies, and related courses across fine arts and visual arts programs.

What happens to art when feminism grips the curatorial imagination? How do sexual politics become realised as exhibits? Is the struggle against gender discrimination compatible with the aspirations of museums led by market values? Beginning with the feminist critique of the art exhibition in the 1970s and concluding with reflections on intersectional curating and globalisation after 2000, this pioneering collection offers an alternative narrative of feminism's impact on art. The essays provide rigorous accounts of developments in Scandinavia, Eastern and Southern Europe as well as the UK and US, framed by an introduction which offers a politically engaging navigation of historical and current positions. Delivered through essays, memoirs and interviews, discussion highlights include the Tate Modern hang, relational aesthetics, the global exhibition, feminism and technology in the museum, the rise of curatorial collectivism, and insights into major exhibitions such as Gender Check on Eastern Europe. Bringing together two generations of curators, artists and historians to rethink distinct and unresolved moments in the feminist re-modelling of art contexts, this volume dares to ask: is there a history of feminist art or one of feminist presentations of artworks? Contributors include Deborah Cherry, Jo Anna Isaak, Malin Hedlin Hayden, Lubaina Himid, Amelia Jones, Kati Kivimaa, Alexandra Kokoli, Kuratorisk Aktion, Suzana Milevska, Suzanne Lacy, Lucy Lippard, Sue Malvern, Nancy Proctor, Bojana Pejic, Helena Reckitt, Jessica Sj holm Skrubbe, Jeannine Tang and Catherine Wood.

This innovative book represents a timely intervention in both critical discourses on video and new media art, as well as examination of gender in post-Socialist contexts. The chapters explore how encounters between art and technology have been implicated in the representation and analysis of gender, critically reflecting current debates and politics across the region and Europe. The book offers a diversity of analytical contexts, addressing interwoven histories across post-Socialist Europe, and engages the paradigms of art practice and the visual cultures such histories uphold. Contributors have given a broad interpretation to the questions of video, media and performance, as well as to mediation in relation to art and gender, reflecting on a wide range of subjects, from the curatorial role to artistic practice, cross-cultural collaboration, co-production, democracy and representation, and impasses in securing streamlined identities. The volume brings together rigorously theoretical and visually comprehensive examinations of examples of works, featuring artists such as: Bernd and Hilla Becher; Anna Daučiková; Izabella Gustowska; Judit Kele; Komar and Melamid; Andrzej Karmasz; Marko Marković; Oleg Mavromatti; Tanja Ostojić; Nebojša Šerić Šoba; Mare Tralla; Ulay and Abramović and others. Contributors: Inga Fonar Cocos, Mark Gisbourne, Marina Gržinić, Beata Hock, Katarzyna Kosmala, Paweł Leszkowicz, Iliyana Nedkova, Agata Rogoś, Boryana Rossa, Aneta Stojnić, Josip Zanki. Preface by Katy Deepwell.

The texts gathered in this volume embrace women artists-only exhibitions, festivals, collective art projects, groups and associations, organised in the long 1970s in Europe (1968-1984). These all-women art initiatives are closely related to developments within the political and politicized women's movement in Europe and America but what emerges is the varied and plural manner of their engagements with feminism(s) alongside their creation of 'heterotopias' in relation to specific sites/ politics/ collaborative art practices. This book presents examples from Italy, Spain, UK, Portugal, Austria, Poland, Denmark, Germany (East and West), The Netherlands, France and Sweden. While each chapter is largely devoted to one country, the authors point to how the local and specific political situation in which these initiatives emerged is linked to global tendencies as well as inter-European exchanges. Each chapter of this book thus assesses the impact of travelling views of feminism, by considering connections made between women artists (often when travelling abroad) or their knowledge of art practices from abroad. Distinct and highly varied attitudes towards political activism (from strong engagement to a clearly pronounced distance and even hostility) are shown in each essay and, what is more, they are shown as based on radically different premises about feminism, politics and art.