Author Description

In a comprehensive series of consultation workshops groups and individuals from every conceivable background have been asked to share their thoughts, concepts and themes for the kind of exhibition they would like to experience. Tate Liverpool curators together with a range of internationally renowned artists have been reflecting on how these notions might be manifested within the Galleries and constitute an exhibition. Thus The Fifth Floor has initiated a process of discussion which invites us to rethink the roles of curator, artist and audience. The Fifth Floor examines curatorial strategies that envisage participation in the arts from the 1960s to today and includes essays from key curators and researchers including Nicolas Bourriaud, Claire Bishop and Lars Bang Larsen. It then takes The Fifth Floor exhibition at Tate Liverpool as a case study to examine how artistic approaches accommodate (or undermine) this curatorial practice through numerous interviews and texts by participating artists. Finally, it explores how radical curatorial strategies and approaches to exhibition making crossover into the unchartered territory between art, education and audience development. Colour illustrations showing installation views of the exhibition, images of related events, as well as documents of the research and consultation carried out in the making of the exhibition, will feature throughout the publication as well as in a major section of artists' pages.