Pablo Lafuente

Overview
In Detail

Editor, Afterall +
Pathway Leader, MRes Art: Exhibition Studies

Research Interests

Contemporary art and its theory, history of exhibitions and curatorial practice, the juncture of art and aesthetics and the political, especially in pedagogical practices.

Current Research

Pablo Lafuente has been an editor for the publishing and research organisation Afterall since 2005. Within Afterall, he has explored different approaches to art research and writing, and the implications these might have for artistic practice. He is a Series Editor for the Exhibition Histories book series, which analyses the history of contemporary art through the detailed study of key exhibitions from the last 50 years. He is the Managing Editor of the One Work book series, which closely examine important individual artworks. And also an editor for Afterall journal which since 1998 has explored art practice in relation to its wider cultural, social and political context.

Lafuente is, together with Lucy Steeds, the Pathway Leader for MRes Art: Exhibition Studies at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. This two-year postgraduate research course takes as its starting point the work developed in relation to the Exhibition Histories book series, in order to study the history of contemporary art through the prism of the moment when art comes into contact with its publics – the exhibition.

Lafuente has also worked, since 2008, as Associate Curator for the Office for Contemporary Art Norway, for which he has developed a number of projects. Among these are the anthology Whatever Happened to Sex in Scandinavia?, published by OCA and Koenig Books in 2012, and co-edited with Marta Kuzma, and Norway’s official representation for the 54^th Venice Biennale, for which he was a co-curator with Marta Kuzma and Peter Osborne.

He has written for periodicals including Afterall, Parkett, The Wire, Radical Philosophy, frieze and Art Monthly, and contributed to various books and exhibition catalogues.

Recent Research

2011: Editor, Whatever Happened to Sex in Scandinavia? (ISBN 978-3-86335-068-0, Pub. Office for Contemporary Art Norway and Koenig Books
2011: Exhibition (co-curator), ‘The State of Things’ and ‘Beyond Death: Viral Discontents and Contemporary Notions about AIDS’, Norway’s official representation at the 54^th Venice Biennale
2011: Editor, Gerard Byrne: Images or Shadows (ISBN 978-1-907020-61-2), Pub. Irish Museum of Art
2011: Exhibition (co-curator), ‘Forms of Modern Life: From the Archives of Guttorm Guttormsgaard’, Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Oslo
2011: Chapter in book ‘Teresa Gleadowe and Pablo Lafuente in Conversation with Charles Harrison, pt.1 and 2’, in Charles Harrison: Looking Back (ISBN 978-1-905464-29-6), Pub. Ridinghouse
2010: Chapter in book ‘A Picture that Moves: Goshka Macuga’s Guernica’, in Goshka Macuga: The Nature of the Beast (ISBN 978-0-85488-180-2), ed. Kirsty Ogg, Pub. Whitechapel Gallery
2010: Chapter in book ‘Two Ways to Read Film (and Its Politics): Hito Steyerl, Sigmund Freud and Aristotle’, in Hito Steyerl (ISBN 978-82-90955-89-7), ed. Tone Hansen, Pub. Henie Onstad Art Centre.
2009–10: Exhibition (co-curator) 'Columns, Grottos and Niches – The Grammar of Forms. On Art Criticism, Writing, Publishing and Distribution', Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Oslo. Sept 2009–April 2010.
2009: Chapter in book 'Notes on Art Criticism as a Practice' in Nought to Sixty, ed. R. Birkett and M. Sladen. Pub. ICA, London.
2009: Conference contribution 'For a History of Contemporary Exhibition Practice', First Former West Congress, BAK, Utrecht, Nov. 2009.
2008: Chapter in book 'Jacques Rancière and Romantic Aesthetics' in Gresganger tussen disciplines: Over Jacques Ranciere, ed. Solange de Boer. Pub. Valiz, Amsterdam.
2006: 'Unit Structures', Lisboa 20 Gallery, Portugal.
2006: 'Watch Out... It's Real!', Greengrassi gallery, London.
2005: Display: Recent Installation Photographs from London Galleries and Venues, Authored book (ISBN – 0954824024), Rachmaninoffs
2004: 'Must I Paint You a Picture?', Haunch of Venison Gallery, London