A new world of exhibiting and cataloguing

The world of appropriation is no longer limited to art, but is increasingly defining the activity of curators. The present volume Recent British Painting on the exhibition at both Jorg Grimm galleries in Amsterdam (18.10. until 24.11.2012) doesn’t merely showcase novelties or »fresh meat«, as the protagonists of such shows are often somewhat disparagingly described, but draws upon the programming and aesthetic of exhibitions and publications, such as the British Council from the 1970s and 1980s. The specificity of these now seemingly outdated exhibitions resided in the fact that there was little or no curatorial input; nowadays, the curatorial reference back to this exhibition practice permits the questioning of every work as to its meaning under the banner of the new and the grouping of artists from different generations born between the 1930s and 1980s. That means of course that different historical and individual issues become visible in this confrontation: the peculiarities of figuration and abstraction, the unsteady relationship between the painting and its own (post digital) objecthood, the heritage of the various modernisms and, finally, the duty of care in the production of images. Responsible for this unique exhibition – Tom Morton, the Canadian curator who has been creating a stir in London for some years now; he staged the Cyprien Gaillard exhibition in the Hayward Gallery and has been contributing to Frieze magazine since 2001.