Experiments in integrated programming

Abstract

When artists make art that involves people—either as collaborators, facilitators or active subjects—they pose complex questions, not least of which is the question of authorship. Traditionally, the work of museums and galleries is departmentalised into institutional functions, creating divisions of labour and expertise. Education, learning and public programmes are often seen as secondary to, or servicing, exhibitions, and this hierarchy has created disparities in the way that curators work together with artists across programme strands. Drawing on recent projects—the Park Nights series, Dis-assembly and Hearing Voices, Seeing Things—this chapter examines the concept of integrated programming and the strategy of working with artists in a range of contexts to produce new work as developed by the Serpentine Gallery in London. What ‘new institutionalism’ demands is an integrated approach to public programming rather than the traditional and territorial departmentalisation of these areas of work. This interdisciplinary approach engages a wide framework of timescales and the flexibility to work across strands of programming.