Assuming Asymmetries

Through conversations with curators and participating artists, this book revisits some of the most groundbreaking yet under-researched European and US public art exhibitions of the 1980s and 1990s. Assuming Asymmetries focuses on questions central to all these projects: How can art productively navigate political tensions? How have artists and curators addressed the ethical asymmetries of the border condition, of inside and outside, working across walls and fences—whether physical, political, or social? Why is participation so hard to catalyze and conduct? How have artworks come to constitute a practice of “situated knowledge,” engaging with the contexts in which they are produced or exhibited? And finally, what can we learn from the exhibitions discussed here when developing new, respectful forms of curating today?