Exhibition Taxidermy: The Phenomenon and Art of Photo Documentation in a Browser Window

If we see more exhibitions and works of contemporary art in the form of photographic documentation than by visiting galleries or museums live, the question arises as to whether the hierarchy of the original and the copy does not change. In this context, the paradoxical role of photography as a kind of photodermy emerges as it maneuveres between the production of digital, "dead" exhibition leather and the "living" and figurative distribution possibilities it creates – for resurrecting, representing, archiving, informing, and making prostheses for the exhibition and contemporary work of art in the browser window. Can the stuffed exhibition be more vivid in photos than its physical form?

Jogintė Bučinskaitė is a cultural journalist, contemporary art critic, and doctoral student of Art History at the Lithuanian Culture Research Institute. She is mostly interested in practical and theoretical interactions of art communication and representation of contemporary art. Bučinskaitė has worked for the Lithuanian National Television, curated exhibitions, symposiums, edited and compiled publications. She prepares material for publications in the culture column at "15 min" daily and other cultural publications, including exhibition catalogs.

"Previewer" project by Jogintė Bučinskaitė in the exhibition "Do The Right Thing" in "Titanic" exhibition halls of Vilnius Academy of Arts, 2019. Photo by Laurynas Skeisgiela