Subjectivity, plurality, transparency: Mapping new interpretative norms in Australian and UK exhibition-making

This article uses close reading and textual analysis to explore signs of subjectivity, plurality and transparency in one of the most prominent and contested components of the exhibition: wall texts, or interpretation, as they are known in the UK and Australian context. It focuses on four recent exhibitions framed by queer, decolonial or Indigenising perspectives: Queer British Art (Tate Britain, 2017), QUEER: Stories from the NGV Collection (National Gallery of Victoria, 2022), The Past is Now: Birmingham and the British Empire (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 2017) and Unsettled (Australian Museum, 2021). In each case, the authoritative voice of interpretive language is under pressure, leading to the admittance of uncertainty and doubt, the acknowledgement of partiality and subjectivity, and the embrace of plural or conflicting perspectives. The presentation ends by situating these developments within a broader curatorial context to consider how object selection and placement can work in concert or tension with text to offer alternative interpretative experiences to the viewer. 

Part of the Art History Seminar Series, convened by Mary Roberts and Nick Croggon, and presented by the Power Institute and the discipline of art history at the University of Sydney.