The Curatorial Lab of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Department of Art History will present the group exhibition (n)either (n)or, on view May 1 through Sept. 10 in the Conrad A. Elvehjem Building.
Giang Pham’s Nation’s Burden superimposes rice over archival photographs from the Vietnam War to compare the body’s relationship to food and conflict. (Image courtesy Giang Pham)
The exhibition brings together 11 artists whose works in video, photography, and painting address liminality as a persistent condition of contemporary art practices. The artworks, selected from more than 300 submissions, resonate with the concrete and porous boundaries of the Curatorial Lab's space, located at the margins of the Chazen Museum of Art in room 232 of the Elvehjem Building.
To celebrate (n)either (n)or's opening, the Curatorial Lab will host a public reception during the city-wide Gallery Night, on Friday, May 1, from 5 to 8 p.m.
(n)either (n)or is conceived, shaped and organized by a curatorial team that is part of the Department of Art History's burgeoning curatorial studies initiative. The Curatorial Lab team is currently formed by Katherine Berggruen, Simone Doing, Patricia Edmunds, Lynne Harper, Carolyn Hoffelt, Lauren Miller, and Fernanda Villarroel, led by Visiting Associate Professor and Artist in Residence Anna Campbell.
"Given that the exhibition operates within the museum's building but is not subject to its curatorial authority, we wanted to invite people to think in creative ways about marginality," Doing says.
In this collaborative project, the Curatorial Lab functions as a site for pedagogical experimentation and critical inquiry for art history students. The lab space first became available with the opening of the new wing of the Chazen Museum in 2013. Though the space has hosted exhibitions before, (n)either (n)or is the first event to take place after the Department of Art History's significant investment in lighting, infrastructure, and technology, in its ongoing efforts to develop the university's nascent program in curatorial studies.