ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Fluxus works challenge the dominant Western paradigm of aesthetic reception, which privileges visual over multisensory perception. Tracing the evolution of display practices from the nineteenth century to the present, it explores how museum conventions rooted in colonial and racial hierarchies have disembodied aesthetic experiences. Synthesizing Wolfgang Kemp’s reception aesthetics with Donald Norman’s principles of interaction design, the chapter proposes a framework for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the reception of sensory art. A case study of Joseph Beuys’s Capri Battery demonstrates how multisensory perception enhances rather than diminishes intellectual engagement, highlighting the biases and limitations of institutional display conventions that prioritize material preservation over conceptual integrity. The chapter further examines contemporary decolonial and experimental curatorial approaches that seek to reconcile conservation imperatives with multisensory perception. Reimagining the “extrinsic conditions of access” that shape exhibition spaces calls for alternative display strategies that resist ocular-centrism and facilitate more embodied and inclusive aesthetic experiences. Through this expanded reception framework, this chapter contributes to the ongoing discourse on decolonial aesthetics, multisensory curatorial practices and the politics of museum displays.
