Curating the Moving Image

In Curating the Moving Image, influential curator and theorist Mark Nash draws on his work at Documenta11, the Venice Biennale, and elsewhere to explore the possibilities of contemporary curation. Constructing this richly illustrated book as a curatorial project in and of itself, Nash outlines several key concepts that range from exhibition architecture and curating as an affective and artistic practice to post-cold war aesthetics and contemporary Chinese art. Throughout these essays on contemporary art, film, and installation, Nash offers critical commentary and reflection on exhibitions he has curated, including those that focus on socialist and utopian ideals following the end of the Cold War. He also folds curating into a discussion of forms of artistic production that are connected to alternative trajectories of collective and collaborative practice. Ultimately, Nash demonstrates that the art world and contemporary curatorial practice constitute some of the most important tools for social and aesthetic exchange in the twenty-first century.

Mark Nash is an independent curator, film historian, and filmmaker. He is Professor of Film and Digital Media and of History of Consciousness and cofounder with Isaac Julien of the Moving Image Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is also author of Screen Theory Culture and Experiments with Truth, and editor of Red Africa: Affective Communities and the Cold War. Nash worked closely with the late Okwui Enwezor on several large exhibitions including The Short Century and Documenta11 as well as the New Museum’s Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America.