ABSTRACT
Ideas around issues of representation are at the center of what characterizes the relations between postmodern theory and art. In particular, the politics of representivity, meaning who is represented, how and in what ways, is paramount to these accounts. It is surprising then that exhibitions of art per se receive so little attention from theorists. Exhibitions are publicly sanctioned representations of identity, principally, but not exclusively, of the institutions which present them. They are narratives which use art objects as elements in institutionalized stories that are promoted to an audience. Exhibitions act as the visible encounter with a public which receives and acknowledges their import and projected status as important signs of important signs. The “voices” heard within exhibitions-the number and kind of dead artists, the number and kind of women, the kind and number of media, etc.—constitute a highly observable politics, with representations as their currency and their measure of equality in a democratic process.
