Disability Art, Aesthetics, and Access: Creating Exhibitions in a Liberal Arts Setting

Abstract

<p>In this essay we discuss the strategies and concepts behind two separate disability arts exhibitions we co-curated at Davidson College in 2009: <em>RE/FORMATIONS: DISABILITY, WOMEN, AND SCULPTURE </em>and <em>STARING</em>.&nbsp; First, as curators who have mounted two disability arts exhibitions in the context of a small liberal arts college, we offer insights from our practical experience related to conceptualizing and producing a show focused around disability and art: its shape, funding, and display.&nbsp; It is our hope these will be useful to curators, but also to those who have little or no curatorial experience.&nbsp; Our comments will emphasize the context of the liberal arts college, but many of the central issues we confronted would be relevant to mounting such exhibitions in other settings.&nbsp; Second, in discussing the dialogues about disability that emerged within and from our two exhibitions (<em>RE/FORMATIONS: Disability, Women, and Sculpture </em>and <em>STARING</em>), we want to provide some answers from our own experience to the question: what compelling issues and ideas emerge at the intersection of access, disability aesthetics, and art when creating such exhibitions?</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Keywords: </strong>art, disability art, curator, curating disability, liberal arts college, exhibitions, disability aesthetics, <em>RE/FORMATIONS, STARING</em>, staring, Harriet Sanderson, Laura Splan, Nancy Fried, Judith Scott, Rebecca Horn, Doug Auld, Chris Rush, access, exhibition access, sculpture, breast cancer, intellectual disability, polio, burn survivors</p><p>&nbsp;</p>