Output details

Intervention/Decoration

Intervention/Decoration was a public-sector exhibition featuring seven internationally renowned artists commissioned by the curatorial organisation Foreground www.foregroundprojects.org.uk (May-June 2008) and curated by Morrissey. This curatorial practice-as-research contributes to debate about the conceptual definitions of two key terms used in the discussion of artists’ interaction with the public realm: intervention and decoration. Conventionally, both have an established relationship to public space but are understood as opposites, the former representing a conceptual questioning of existing structures, the later representing craft adornment. The exhibition proposed a reassessment of the decorative after Postmodernism, advocating a renewed acceptance that its seductive potential offers the possibility of unexpected or discordant uses of pattern, ornamentation, or flamboyance to create interventions in and reconsiderations of, social space.

The output also contributes to international debate concerning the boundaries of curation by combining two predominantly separate curatorial models. The exhibition operated within an established international context of site-responsive commissioning where artists are required to respond to non-gallery sites as a generative context for the creation of new artwork. However, in contrast to the majority of examples in this field, the output proposes to combine this model within an intellectual framework created by a curator – a model most often found in the institutional group exhibition.

The research was discussed by the curator in a catalogue published by Foreground, and in a lecture given as part of the ‘Art & The City’ series, Arnolfini (May 2009) and in two seminars on diverse approaches to curation in site-specific contexts at the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching Diversity Project, University of Wolverhampton, coordinated by Sue Fahy (September 2009). The exhibition was reviewed by David Trigg, a-n Magazine, (July/August 2008); Colin Glen, Art Monthly (June 2008); and Victoria MacDonald, Artworld Magazine (August/September, 2008).