The Accidental Exhibition: Chance as Curatorial Critique and Opportunity

Abstract

This article elucidates the possibilities offered by an increased interest in chance and indeterminacy as curatorial strategies. Whether informed by artistic or scientific practice, the processes informing these exhibitions are intended not only to attenuate the curatorial role, but also to critique temporary, circumscribed and static exhibition formats in pursuit of more vital structures for the production of knowledge through display. Examining Elena Filipovic's Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Specific Objects without Specific Form (2010–11) and Jens Hoffmann's Passengers (2007–08), among other shows, demonstrates how chance compositional tropes involving repetition and gradual transformation emphasize the exhibition medium as an unstable form with matrices of possibilities.