Conquering the present in the Long Sixties

This essay proposes a new frame for understanding contemporary art and its curatorial birth through a special fixation on the present carried out in new ways of exhibiting, thinking and experiencing art. Coining the term Gegenwartsbewältigung for the conquering of and coming to terms with the present, it unfolds a reading of experimental curatorial visions and artworks from the postwar years to after 1968