CMA Journal Issue Five: Affective Framing: Cinematic Experience and Exhibition Design
Letter from the Editor
In this special-topics issue, Affective Framing: Cinematic Experience and Exhibition Design, guest editor Mallory Gemmel draws focus on the study of curation and the role exhibition design plays in shaping the viewer鈥檚 relationship with art. Taking inspiration from the affective faculties of narrative cinema and the ways in which viewers are pulled into the filmic life world through spectacle, narration and meaning making, this issue explores this relational process across the context of contemporary visual art.
As a form of institutional critique, the submissions in this issue highlight the significance of the audience in the reception of art. The traditional white-cube provides a consistent format for the singular encounter with art, where neutral space creates the condition to let the art speak. Alternatively, we ask how the conditions of the art space can be directed so that the viewer may speak back in both active contemplation and embodied experience.
I am delighted by the turn this special-topics issue takes in the transformation of the journal. This new format allows emerging scholars to utilize the journal to better develop their area of research and take the temperature of scholarship in their field. Mallory鈥檚 call took in a range of exciting submissions, all rethinking the institutional encounter with art, and how to use exhibition design to give rise to diverse responses in an expanded range of spectators. Beyond a mutual excitement in curation, these scholars were able to share research and explore curatorial acts through case-study. Future issues will apply this format, where graduate editors rotate to explore topics that are close to them as scholars, so to expand the field of interest and generate a research network.
This issue was produced by Mallory Gemmel and myself with editorial assistance from Siying Duan, Nadeem Kajani, Lea Hogan, Zaki Rezwan and Jennifer Anderson. We are grateful for the continuing mentorship of Dr. Laura U. Marks and recognize the generous small publications grant she put forth to fund the production of our first print issue. Additionally, this issue is indebted to the School for the Contemporary Arts at 丁香园AV, in particular the faculty support of Denise Oleksijczuk, Peter Dickinson and Elspeth Pratt.
Yours sincerely,
Yani Kong
Managing Editor
