| Abstrakt: |
The prevailing historiography of the exhibitions movement - as one of the most primary phenomena of the nineteenth century - has been subject to the discourse of social supervision and control, or, as Tony Bennett who coined the term “exhibitionary complex" explained, is about “ ...winning hearts and minds as well as the disciplining and training of bodies." In other words, exhibitions, and all other forms of visual entertainment are intended to instill in people's minds, through entertainment and via enjoyable gaze, the modem values of the liberal elite, by interiorizing the gaze as a principle of self-surveillance and, hence, of self-regulation. In focusing on the “industrial exhibitions of the working classes," a segment of the “exhibitionary complex" that has been completely neglected in the historiography of the exhibitions movement, this article offers a new and corrective viewpoint. The article argues that the working-people's exhibitions must be considered as a system of social communication at the heart of which lies the public presentation of collective self-management, manual dexterity and artisanship as social capital. In this framework, the material objects that were exhibited, mostly hobby crafts and other homemade artifacts created by their makers during their leisure-time, did not serve for the purpose of self-surveillance and self-discipline. These artifacts, as extensions of their makers, were meant to confer upon the exhibition participants, men and women alike, the ability to speak and be seen in the public space, as autonomous subjects and free agents. The working-class exhibition, then, provided a space for social interaction and for performative acts. In this regard, they were discursive loci or “spaces of appearance," where all those involved could seek recognition. The vitality of the industrial exhibitions of the working classes as a successful popular movement did not derive from having the focus be the unequal relationship between employers and employees, rich and poor, or the powerful and those subject to power, but rather it derived from the focus being the tense relationship between those who enjoyed recognition and those who suffered disrespect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
