Curating Through Signs
Semiotic Approaches to Contemporary Exhibition Practice
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publishing:12th Nov '26
£95.00
This title is due to be published on 12th November, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Studies curating from a semiotic perspective, conceptualising it as a dynamic, dialogic and participatory practice.
In this interdisciplinary book, renowned cultural theorist Mieke Bal brings a semiotic lens to curatorial practice, presenting curating and art-making as dynamic sites of meaning-making. Grounded in semiotics, the book delves into how signs and their interactions shape not only art but also the processes of curation, teaching, and engagement with culture.
Examining various case studies, including her own filmmaking alongside research by Michael Ann Holly, curatorial work by Kyoo Lee, sculptures by Doris Salcedo, urban art by migrants and refugees, and classroom interactions, the book conceptualises curating as a participatory practice. Whether in museums, classrooms, or other contexts, it demonstrates how curating can facilitate a shift from traditional, passive forms of viewing art to a more immersive, participatory form of “seeing".
Designed for scholars, curators and students, this book extends Bal’s influential work on visual culture into the realm of curatorial practice, demonstrating how these practices can transform both the spaces in which art is presented and the way it is experienced.
In this incisive volume, Mieke Bal bridges curatorial practice and semiotic theory, arguing that exhibitions must activate viewers as participants. Through concepts like relationality, diffusion, and affect, Bal shows how art truly ‘works’ not as a static object but as a dynamic encounter. Essential reading for curators, artists, and cultural analysts seeking art’s political agency. -- Nikoleta Zampaki, Adjunct Lecturer, Department of English Studies University of Information, Technology and Management, Poland
In Curating Through Signs, Mieke Bal performs the very "image-thinking" she theorizes, staging a luminous encounter between Peircean semiotics and curatorial practice. Her argument for the agency of the "work of art," and for seeing as active participation, brilliantly restores art's political and affective force. Essential reading for cultural theorists, curators, and art practitioners. -- Peggy Karpouzou, Associate Professor of Theory of Literature, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
Drawing on her vast experience as art critic, filmmaker, and curator, Mieke Bal brings the full resources of critical theory to bear on the crucial act of curating, showing how innovative presentation of works of different sorts have the utopian potential of making viewers active participants in creative reimagining. -- Jonathan Culler, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University, USA
ISBN: 9781350600799
Dimensions: 236mm x 162mm x 22mm
Weight: 440g
200 pages