- Australian Film, Television and Radio School, Screen Design, AlumnusThe University of New South Wales, UNSW Art & Design, Department Member, and 2 moreadd
- Curating, Art History, Exhibition History, Museum and Curating Studies, Political Geography and Geopolitics, Site-Specific Art, Southern Theory, Contemporary Latin American Art, and 26 moreContemporary African art, Global South, Contemporary Australian Art, Michael Taussig, History of Exhibitions, Gay and Lesbian History, Cultural Mappings, The Lusophone World, Okwui Enwezor, Curatorial Practice (Art), Place and Identity, Practice-Based Research, Curation, Art Criticism, Museums and Exhibition Design, Biennales, Decolonization, Therianthropy, Nato Thompson, Social Practice, Indigenous Studies, Epistemicide, Boaventura De Sousa Santos, Translocality, Tania Bruguera, and Raewyn Connelledit
- Dr David Corbet is an educator, writer/editor, designer and curator based in Sydney, Australia. In 2019 he was awarde... moreDr David Corbet is an educator, writer/editor, designer and curator based in Sydney, Australia. In 2019 he was awarded a PhD at the University of Sydney’s College of the Arts, focussed on experimental / transcultural / translocal curatorial practice and exhibition histories. Previously he completed a Master of Fine Arts (Research) at the University of New South Wales, exploring language systems in contemporary art and design, and earlier completed interdisciplinary studies at Central St Martins School of Art (part of the University of the Arts) in London.
As well as teaching into art and design domains at UNSW Art & Design, he writes extensively for art journals, and participates in conferences and forums worldwide. He is the founder of the long-established design and communications consultancy DNA Creative Sydney, working with diverse clients on visual identity, broadcast, publishing and spatial design projects. He leads the itinerant contemporary art platform, DNA Projects, presenting hybrid art and exhibition projects by emerging artists, designers and photographers, and works with diverse collections, curators, institutions and artists as an exhibition and catalogue designer and editor. His personal creative practice encompasses painting, installation, printmaking, photomedia and environmental art projects.edit
(Frontmatter, contents and abstract only - full thesis can be requested by direct message to author). This thesis examines questions of place-making and identity formation in Contemporary Art, and their influence on artistic and... more
(Frontmatter, contents and abstract only - full thesis can be requested by direct message to author).
This thesis examines questions of place-making and identity formation in Contemporary Art, and their influence on artistic and exhibition practice into the early twenty-first century. Its research scope encompasses global considerations of decolonisation, cultural displacement, migration, translocality and environmental disruption, explored from a range of perspectives, including the transnational imaginary of a Global South. The research arises from the author’s curatorial work, and its arguments are ‘bookended’ by two curatorial case studies for recent exhibitions, contextualising the research as a response to questions arising from exhibition practice. With an emphasis on both artist-focussed practice and viewer experience, some key curatorial values – locality, identity, discursivity and affectivity – are identified as an analytical and evaluative framework to examine diverse exhibitionary forms and practices worldwide. Key contexts and terms of reference are established at the outset, followed – in Chapter 2: Narratives – by an art-historical framing for the research, interrogating established Euro-American narratives, and investigating the emerging structures and networks of a rapidly-globalising ‘exhibitionary complex’ (Bennett, 1988). The multi-scalar manifestations of this ‘Global Contemporary’ are examined through multiple lenses, including a history of influential exhibitions, emerging platforms and curatorial developments. These investigations are further contextualised – in Chapter 3: Topologies – in relation to recent literature on locality, identity and affect, across a range of related disciplines, encompassing art history and theory; critical theory; anthropology and spirituality studies; spatial, social and cultural histories; and aspects of contemporary economics and politics. Chapter 4: Praxis is focussed on curatorial and exhibition practice across numerous sites and exhibition platforms worldwide, with an emphasis on major museums and recurrent international exhibition platforms such as biennials and triennials. It investigates diverse deterritorialised and precarious forms of art and ‘non-art’ practice, and the challenges faced by curators in presenting such practices in contemporary exhibitions, concluding with a reflection on socially-engaged practice. Chapter 5: Curatorial Case Studies provides detailed analysis of two exhibitions studied as part of field research in Europe and the Middle East, and Chapter 6: Futures explores emerging trends and possible future developments for exhibition practice, suggesting some sightlines to the future for the independent art sector. This is followed by a second Curatorial Case Study – for the exhibition platform The Museum of Dissensus – addressing issues arising from the research. Conclusion summarises key research arguments and findings.
This thesis examines questions of place-making and identity formation in Contemporary Art, and their influence on artistic and exhibition practice into the early twenty-first century. Its research scope encompasses global considerations of decolonisation, cultural displacement, migration, translocality and environmental disruption, explored from a range of perspectives, including the transnational imaginary of a Global South. The research arises from the author’s curatorial work, and its arguments are ‘bookended’ by two curatorial case studies for recent exhibitions, contextualising the research as a response to questions arising from exhibition practice. With an emphasis on both artist-focussed practice and viewer experience, some key curatorial values – locality, identity, discursivity and affectivity – are identified as an analytical and evaluative framework to examine diverse exhibitionary forms and practices worldwide. Key contexts and terms of reference are established at the outset, followed – in Chapter 2: Narratives – by an art-historical framing for the research, interrogating established Euro-American narratives, and investigating the emerging structures and networks of a rapidly-globalising ‘exhibitionary complex’ (Bennett, 1988). The multi-scalar manifestations of this ‘Global Contemporary’ are examined through multiple lenses, including a history of influential exhibitions, emerging platforms and curatorial developments. These investigations are further contextualised – in Chapter 3: Topologies – in relation to recent literature on locality, identity and affect, across a range of related disciplines, encompassing art history and theory; critical theory; anthropology and spirituality studies; spatial, social and cultural histories; and aspects of contemporary economics and politics. Chapter 4: Praxis is focussed on curatorial and exhibition practice across numerous sites and exhibition platforms worldwide, with an emphasis on major museums and recurrent international exhibition platforms such as biennials and triennials. It investigates diverse deterritorialised and precarious forms of art and ‘non-art’ practice, and the challenges faced by curators in presenting such practices in contemporary exhibitions, concluding with a reflection on socially-engaged practice. Chapter 5: Curatorial Case Studies provides detailed analysis of two exhibitions studied as part of field research in Europe and the Middle East, and Chapter 6: Futures explores emerging trends and possible future developments for exhibition practice, suggesting some sightlines to the future for the independent art sector. This is followed by a second Curatorial Case Study – for the exhibition platform The Museum of Dissensus – addressing issues arising from the research. Conclusion summarises key research arguments and findings.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Copyright controlled. Please see contents list for links to ebook.
Researchers may request a pdf copy of this chapter by direct messaging me.
Researchers may request a pdf copy of this chapter by direct messaging me.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Curating, Contemporary South African Art, Curatorial Practice (Art), Contemporary Latin American Art, Global South, and 7 moreContemporary African art, History of Exhibitions, South African contemporary art, Contemporary Mexican Art, Australian Indigenous Contemporary Art, Contemporary Art in the Global South, and Contemporaneous art of the global South
Research Interests: Languages and Linguistics, Installation Art, Video Art, Printmaking, Practice-Based Research, and 9 moreJack Burnham, Contemporary Australian Art, Michael Taussig, Historical and Contemporary Shamanism, Mimesis In Visual Art, Contemporaneous art of the global South, Language in Contemporary Art, Metaphysics in art practice, and Material as metaphor
Research Interests:
This essay explores space through placelessness and the ‘translocal,’ looking at various artistic practices occurring nomadically, outside of institutions, and through a social practice framework. It discusses works that are... more
This essay explores space through placelessness and the ‘translocal,’ looking at various artistic practices occurring nomadically, outside of institutions, and through a social practice framework. It discusses works that are locally-specific but exist within an international, and perhaps intangible, community.
Reproduced courtesy Runway Australian Experimental Art, Issue #35 'Space', 2017 (online).
Reproduced courtesy Runway Australian Experimental Art, Issue #35 'Space', 2017 (online).
Research Interests:
A critical exploration of the quinquennial exhibition Documenta 14, staged in Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany in 2017. It includes a range of contextualised views from diverse writers and critics, drawn from numerous sources, as well... more
A critical exploration of the quinquennial exhibition Documenta 14, staged in Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany in 2017. It includes a range of contextualised views from diverse writers and critics, drawn from numerous sources, as well as reflections and opinions by the author.
Reproduced courtesy Eyeline journal #88: Eyeline Publishing, Brisbane Australia, 2018.
Reproduced courtesy Eyeline journal #88: Eyeline Publishing, Brisbane Australia, 2018.
Research Interests:
The article arises from an ongoing curatorial project, titled ‘The Museum of Dissensus’. It interrogates the nexus between art and politics, and examines notions of dissent, political activism and responses to hegemonic power in the... more
The article arises from an ongoing curatorial project, titled ‘The Museum of Dissensus’. It interrogates the nexus between art and politics, and examines notions of dissent, political activism and responses to hegemonic power in the cultural realm. The art museum is increasingly a site of critique, dissent, activism and other artistic responses to social injustice. Beyond the visible hierarchies of state, corporate and institutional structures, artists and exhibition-makers must also engage with the entrenched cultures of the exhibitionary complex, seemingly-benign, but historically inscribed by an alliance of government, academia and commercial art world players.This article focuses on silenced and effaced histories that often result from a still-pervasive master narrative of North Atlantic Modernism as a template for exhibition-making, from both a curatorial and artist-practice point of view. It references numerous practitioners worldwide, with an emphasis on First Peoples and diverse othered groups, including feminist, queer and self-taught artists, many from Australia and New Zealand.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Thoughts on Qalandiya International, Palestine, 2016
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
A review article originally published online in December 2015. The website is currently under re-construction.