How artists can shift paradigms of display and interpretation in museums
Glenn Ligon: All Over The Place, installation view: Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge 2024
- Can artists shift paradigms in a way that curators/art historians can’t?
- What is the role of exhibitions in meaning-making and critical thinking?
- Should we keep specialism of segregated disciplines in collections – does this make sense today?
- What is the relationship between aesthetics and ideas in that can visual effect/affect of displays change meaning?
We will explore these questions and more with Habda Rashid (Senior Curator, Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge) for the first Art History seminar of 2024/25.
There will be a Q&A followed by drinks and biscuits.
Case study:
Habda Rashi has been working with the American artist Glenn Ligon (born New York, 1960), for around 3 years on the exhibition, Glenn Ligon: All Over The Place, which transforms the Fitzwilliam Museum and reveals connections between pieces in the collections of the University of Cambridge and Ligon’s art. It is the first major exhibition by a Black artist at the Museum and the first to centre the contemporary lens.
Thirty years of Ligon’s practice, come together with works of art and objects that span over a thousand years of global cultural and artistic traditions, including ceramics, manuscripts, prints and paintings. The exhibition is woven into several permanent galleries, set against the columns of the Museum’s entrance and presented in two dedicated gallery spaces. It brings to the fore previously hidden narratives, subtly changing and renewing the meanings of historic works. It reveals how meaning is not static and can change over time and in contexts as well as creating a throughline on the visibility and invisibility of race in museums and their collections.
Habda Rashid Bio.
Habda Rashid is Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. Where she has recently curated the exhibition: Glenn Ligon: All over the Place; a show that weaves through several of the museum’s spaces and presents over 1000 years of artistic and cultural traditions, including ceramic, prints, manuscripts and paintings. Her research focus examines how post-colonial complexities of genealogies and geographies challenge and broaden existing histories of art. Previously, her role also covered Kettle’s Yard, and prior to this Habda was Senior Curator and then joint Artistic Director at Create London, where she was part of the commissioning team for Veronica Ryan’s Turner Prize-winning Hackney Windrush Art Commission. She has also worked at the Whitechapel Gallery and has had writing published on many contemporary artists, including Lynette Yiadom- Boakye, Michael Rakowitz and Deborah Roberts. Habda curated the 2024 major exhibition at Lismore Castle, examining sculptural traditions and the symbolic as well as actual history of objects in sculpture through the work of artists, Leonor Antunes, Alexandre da Cuhna, Rhea Dillon and Veronica Ryan. Habda is a fellow of Wolfson College, advisor for the Fine Art Faculty, British School at Rome and a 2025 Turner Prize jury member.