Exposability: On the Taking-Place in Future of Art

Art’s 'exposability' — Walter Benjamin’s word is 'Ausstellbarkeit' — promises both a public future and a social history for art. Or we might rather say: public futures and social histories for artistic practices. In this essay I revisit Ausstellbarkeit as Benjamin invokes it in the 1930s and I repurpose it for art theory now. In doing this, I apply three lenses. First is 'A Woman of Paris' (1923), the film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin and starring Edna Purviance, which is frequently cited by Benjamin and has some intriguing recent history online. Second comes the 'Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism' show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1936), and the position of Mickey Mouse in relation. Third and finally, I briefly reflect on the trajectories of two filmic heroines of early Soviet cinema, in 'The Adventures of Oktyabrina' ('Pokhozdeniya Oktyabrini', 1924) and 'Alone' ('Odna', 1931) respectively. In applying these lenses, I explore what it might mean to think through exposability as a heuristic serving sociopolitical ends.

This essay contributes to the book 'Theater, Garden, Bestiary: A Materialist History of Exhibitions', edited by Tristan Garcia and Vincent Normand. The volume gathers and expands upon the results of the research project with the same name, led by Garcia and Normand at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne.