Curatorial Statement

Othering Bodies is part of the assessment for the module Curating Renaissance Art and Exhibitions at The Warburg Institute. We were asked to set an exhibition centered around one painting of our choice from the National Gallery in London, which in my case was Cranach’s The Silver Age/ Primitive People. As I was researching the painting I discovered how there was no scholarly certainty about what was represented in the painting. Perhaps the source was inspired by a passage of Hesiod, or maybe one by Ovid. Soon I realised that I had to focus my exhibition on another aspect of the painting. I then read a remark that drew attention to the painting’s original setting and what a contrast it would have created between the naked and primitive people depicted and the “civilised” contemporary viewer. Surely this was more interesting to think about in an exhibition than simply putting together literary text and images – a type of exhibition that would have seemed to imply that images are mere visual renderings. Moreover, this also proved to be an excellent opportunity to address an increasingly diverse audience at the National Gallery which might not be familiar with art history or the gallery itself.

Inspired by Wolfgang Kemp’s aesthetics of reception – a methodology that focuses on the act of seeing where previous knowledge is not required and thus useful for an audience who might have little knowledge of art – I decided to explore the ways in which visual representations of other bodies inform us about our social, racial and political systems, and beliefs. The exhibition thus begins with a Nazi textbook, a case of othering largely acknowledged by the general public. The other works further explore the othering of bodies to arrive at a better understanding of Cranach’s picture, where otherness is harder to distinguish given its reliance on transhistorical juxtaposition.

At this point, the imaginary barrier separating the general audience from Early Modern Period images is gone and the audience has also been led into an understanding of the othering as a central motif to all cultures throughout historical periods. Of course, there could have been other types of “positive” corporeal othering, such as the body of Christ, but that would have added a religious layer that might have diverted the conversation in unproductive ways. The selection might give a rather pessimistic tone to the whole of the exhibition, but a photograph of two feminist activists poses a further question, and perhaps a possible solution to the consequences of othering in terms of gender.

The exhibition, thought of as a physical space, is set in a round room (inspired by Room 11 at the National Gallery) with a cabinet holding the books at the centre, and the engraving, painting and photograph hung on the walls. This gives the visitor some freedom to move around the space and be able to compare and trace similarities and differences across the images, forcing her to actively participate in the exhibition. This echoes art historical work, which contrary to popular belief, does not focus on taking pleasure in images and memorising dates, but understanding the processes that create meaning from images, thus inviting visitors to further explore the National Gallery’s collection.

Othering Bodies is ambitious in its aim and explicitly political in its content. The reason for the first rests on my intention to include as many lines of enquiry as possible. The second stems out from personal convictions of how art and cultural institutions can address contemporary, historical, social and political issues, and provide a locus for finding solutions collectively. I also believe that everything is political and that any grouping of ideas, paintings or artefacts creates meaning, consciously or unconsciously (indeed they can create self and otherness). As the Spanish philosopher Jacobo Muñoz put it “we cannot attempt to convert maps of reality created by philosophy, institutions and politics into enclosed systems. We need to overcome those limits in search of a new Enlightenment where the prototype of citizen is no longer the white and economic autonomous male figure.”