Supervised by Dr Ben Cranfield, Senior Tutor, Curating Contemporary Art MA, and Valentina Ravaglia, Curator, Displays and International Art, Tate Modern.
October 2023 –
This research critically examines the way Tate Modern conceives art in the global space and practices transnational curating through its collection display and temporary exhibitions. Specifically, it delves into how transnational vision in curatorial practice shapes the presentation of East Asian modern and contemporary art. While the artworks are multi-coded and hold the possibility of diverse readings, it is the curatorial rhetoric and the display language that sculpt the narrative. This research aims to understand the process of producing narratives and values through intricate phases of artwork selection, research, interpretation and display methodology.
Installation of the Gutai Display, Tate Modern, 2024. Photo: Kahyun Lee
Since the turn of the century, the coupling of the growing global art market and post-colonial theory emerged as a pivotal momentum in the art scene. Amid unprecedented levels of international connections and cultural exchanges the art world has encountered the challenge of devising a nuanced framework to situate a multitude of art practices beyond the Euro-American canon of modernity. The case of Tate Modern presents a unique vantage point from which to view modern and contemporary art institutional practice responding to global transformations. Analysing Tate Modern’s transnational curating not only offers an insight specific to Tate Modern but also provides a site to discuss modern and contemporary art curating in the twenty-first century.
I recognise the paramount role institutions play in shaping the discourse of art in global contexts. I believe it is imperative that we understand institutional curatorial practice, its modalities and limitations to develop a new paradigm for an enriched and diversified art world. While there are a plethora of biennials and individual exhibitions that adopt more responsive approaches, institutions bound to the historic temporality and locality are significant agents in shaping the discourse in the long term. For me, Tate Modern is particularly interesting for being the experimental site of modern and contemporary art museum navigating the shifting grounds of the ‘global’ and the ‘transnational’ over the last two decades.
Kahyun Lee
About Kahyun Lee
Kahyun Lee is an independent curator and a researcher who approaches curating as a critical practice and an alternative knowledge production beyond the visual arts. Driven by an interest in structural conditions and their relation to cultural forms, Lee’s practice questions the structures such as national borders, identity and physicality. Through the language of exhibitions and programmes, Lee aims to reflect on the past, examine the present and reimagine the future. Lee previously curated exhibitions and programmes at the Design Museum London, the Museum of Contemporary Art Busan and the British Library.
Website kahyunlee.com
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