INSTITUTING
Following a period of opposition in the late twentieth century marked by the rise of the independent curator challenging institutional authority, curatorial practice has more recently re-entered the institutional sphere, occupying complex roles that blur the boundaries between independence and affiliation...
This shift aligns with theories of alter-institutionality and New Institutionalism, wherein curators simultaneously contest, appropriate, and collaborate with institutions to reconnect them to their social and cultural agency. Rather than rejecting or fully assimilating, contemporary curators enact strategies that both destabilise and renew institutional logics, creating dynamic spaces of negotiation and innovation beyond traditional museological paradigms. Instituting is best understood as the study of institutions as forms under continual negotiation rather than as stable containers.
Professors
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