JENS HOFFMANN Back to the Future: Histories of Exhibitions

Noted writer and curator Jens Hoffmann joins us for this talk about the power of exhibitions to change established notions of art and art history, and how a select few have intersected with the realities of their time to form such discursive shifts. Focusing on exhibition-making as a form of theater and communication that transcends the display of objects in a gallery space, his talk will revolve around two historically pathbreaking presentations—Primary Structures (Jewish Museum, 1966) and When Attitudes Become Form (Kunsthalle Bern, 1969)—both of which he’s restaged many decades after their original manifestations.

Based in New York, Jens Hoffmann is director of special exhibitions and pubic programs at the Jewish Museum, New York, and the Susanne Feld Hilberry Senior Curator at Large at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. Currently he is also co–artistic director of FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial of Contemporary Art (2018) and artistic director of the 2nd Honolulu Biennial (2019). Hoffmann was director of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2007–12) and chief curator and director of exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2003–7).

Cosponsored by Ohio State’s Department of History of Art.

This talk is made possible by a grant from the College of Arts and Sciences Humanities and Arts Discovery Theme project in support of the working group on Contemporary Art and Its Publics.