Maura Reilly Books
Maura Reilly es una curadora y escritora estadounidense reconocida por su trabajo en arte feminista y activismo curatorial. Fue fundadora del Elizabeth A.
Known for: Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating
Books by Maura Reilly
Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating
Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating argues that exhibitions are never neutral. Every curatorial choice—who is included, who is omitted, which histories are emphasized, and which standards of quality are treated as universal—helps shape the public story of art. In this urgent and influential book, Maura Reilly shows how museums, galleries, and biennials have long reinforced hierarchies of gender, race, sexuality, and geography, even while claiming to present objective accounts of artistic achievement. Her central claim is both simple and radical: curators have an ethical obligation to challenge those exclusions rather than reproduce them. Reilly writes with unusual authority. As a curator, scholar, and founding curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, she brings together institutional experience, historical knowledge, and political clarity. The book combines critical theory with concrete case studies, tracing how feminist, postcolonial, queer, and decolonial exhibitions have transformed curatorial practice. For anyone interested in museums, art history, cultural power, or social justice, this book offers a compelling framework for understanding how exhibitions can become tools not just of display, but of repair.
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Museums Are Never Neutral Spaces
What looks like neutrality in a museum is often the quietest form of bias. Reilly begins by exposing a foundational myth of art institutions: that they merely preserve and present the best art. In practice, museums and galleries have historically acted as gatekeepers, deciding which artists enter th...
From Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating
Feminist Curating Rewrites the Canon
The canon changes only when someone is willing to challenge who built it. Reilly presents feminist curating as one of the most important and sustained interventions in modern exhibition history. Feminist curators did more than add women artists to existing frameworks; they questioned the patriarchal...
From Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating
Decolonizing Exhibitions Requires Structural Change
An exhibition can critique colonialism while still operating through colonial habits. That tension sits at the center of Reilly’s discussion of postcolonial and decolonial curatorial strategies. She argues that institutions in Europe and North America have long organized art through imperial maps, p...
From Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating
Queer Visibility Changes Cultural Memory
What institutions fail to show often determines what society fails to remember. Reilly’s discussion of LGBTQ+ curatorial practice demonstrates how exhibitions shape public visibility and historical recognition. For decades, queer artists and queer themes were omitted, coded, or sidelined, even when ...
From Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating
Landmark Exhibitions Prove Change Is Possible
Institutions often claim inclusion is difficult until a powerful exhibition proves otherwise. One of Reilly’s strongest contributions is her use of case studies showing that activist curating is not merely theoretical. Across feminist, postcolonial, queer, and anti-racist practice, she examines exhi...
From Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating
Institutions Must Examine Their Own Power
A museum cannot challenge bias effectively if it refuses to see itself as part of the problem. Reilly’s discussion of institutional critique expands curatorial activism beyond exhibition content to include the museum’s own structures of authority. Collections, endowments, donor influence, leadership...
From Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating
About Maura Reilly
Maura Reilly es una curadora y escritora estadounidense reconocida por su trabajo en arte feminista y activismo curatorial. Fue fundadora del Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art en el Brooklyn Museum y ha publicado extensamente sobre arte contemporáneo y teoría feminista.
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Maura Reilly es una curadora y escritora estadounidense reconocida por su trabajo en arte feminista y activismo curatorial. Fue fundadora del Elizabeth A.
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