From the east end to the mall: issues in curation, class and DIY cultures, 1991-2000

<p dir="ltr">This thesis examines the curatorial strategies found within the independent art projects and curatorial practices in East London during the 1990s. Specifically, it evaluates the initiatives which encouraged collaborative dialogue and artistic cultures which proposed an alternative model for art practice. Drawing on data from original interviews with contemporary artists, curators and writers, autoethnographic accounts from my time in the East London milieu and my own curatorial practices at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), this research is curated by its author. This study critically examines the cultural democratisation and the rebirth of modernist-inspired forms of self-institutionalisation, which have all too often been sidelined in popular accounts in the art press and wider publications. It examines the role and function of the social event, such as the private view and club night, as a significant popular cultural agent that connected previously siloed strata within the art world and blurred the lines between art and entertainment. It demonstrates that DIY art and curatorial practices were forms of social and cultural experimentation, resolving in a brief yet vital independence from the institutionalised establishment of the art world. These neglected, more critically engaged practices stood in opposition to the ‘art headlines’ around the Young British Artists (yBa) of the period. It further addresses the liberation of curatorial practice, which was a catalyst for an expanded audience and narrative. Together, these areas of DIY practice proposed an alternative model for the presentation and mediation of art. This thesis concludes that the institutionalisation of DIY curatorial practice during the 1990s impacted a democratised participation in and consumption of contemporary culture, directly influencing art and culture today.</p>