The monographic exhibition, solo show or retrospective has in modern times been the dominant – and, in terms of audience, most popular – exhibition type, the staple of museum and gallery programmes, and arguably it remains so. Yet it is by common account the least explored as a form; curatorial studies (and indeed many curators) favour the thematic or group exhibition, often dismissing the monographic variously as a celebratory form, market-led or bound by convention. Even artists themselves can view the finality of the retrospective with reluctance.
So what continues to drive the programming of solo exhibitions, what is their continuing allure? How has the curatorial approach to monographic exhibitions changed in recent times? And what can they achieve – specifically – in relation to other forms of examination and presentation? What pressures are brought to bear on them? Does the form of the solo exhibition still allow for critical perspective, and innovation? What influence can it have – on audiences, artists, and art history? How is it experienced, how is it to be remembered, and what is its likely future?
Professor Martin Caiger-Smith has been Head of the MA Curating the Art Museum programme at the Courtauld since its inception in 2007.
Prior to that he worked in a variety of positions in galleries, at the Photographers’ Gallery and at the Hayward Gallery in London, as Head of Exhibitions from 1996, and Acting Director, 2005/6. While at the Hayward he curated and organised a wide range of exhibitions, where he oversaw the shaping and delivery of a broad programme of exhibitions, many of which showed abroad, and National Touring Exhibitions in the UK. These include Magritte, 1992; Julian Opie, 1993; Roger Hilton, 1993; The Epic & the Everyday: Contemporary Photographic Art, 1994; Yves Klein, 1995; Art and Power: Europe under the Dictators, 1995; Anish Kapoor,1998; Francis Bacon: The Human Body, 1998; Spectacular Bodies: The Human Body in Art and Science from Leonardo to Now, 2000; Roy Lichtenstein, 2004, and Dan Flavin, 2006.
Martin’s interests include modern and contemporary museums and galleries and curatorship, and the modern and recent history of curating, exhibitions and display. He is a curator and consultant on art and exhibition projects, and writes on contemporary art, photography and exhibitions. From 2011 to 2020 he was Programme Advisor for the exhibition programme at Two Temple Place, London. His major monograph on Antony Gormley was published by Rizzoli in 2017, and reissued in the Rizzoli Classics series in 2022. In 2019 he curated, with Sarah Lea, Antony Gormley’s retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy.
