The Barbican - which must have two of the most 'difficult-to-use' art gallery spaces in London - is currently showing an exhibition linking the work of Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham and John Cage; all connected and often explicitly referring to each other in their works. Called the Bride and the Bachelors (and running until 6th June 2013) the show has been orchestrated by artist Phillipe Parreno, to include soundscapes and dance performances, with the aim of moving beyond conventional art curation.
The work - of course - is just fab (well actually beyond fab), and it's nice to have dance interludes and musical accompaniment to an art show. But for all the cleverness of its idea the setting left me cold. Because the captions and wall texts are just the same old same old - dry as dust curatorial explanations of who met who when, and detailed documentation (proof?) of individual borrowings and influences in each case. Nothing taking us beyond the selected group, or having a richer, less interfering, relationship to the works. Surely taking art curation past its intense focus on the visual and the textual needs more than just adding a few 'haptic' activities to an otherwise completely standard mix?
Image from Zimbio
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