ABSTRACT
Over the last few decades, curators of contemporary art have been able to bring together an impressive number of artists whose work uses maps or mapping processes in their artworks. Taking place from Sydney to Zagreb, Indiana to Auckland and, despite the waning of singular themes for curated shows, the topic of mapping continued to generate large-scale events such as the Serpentine Gallery’s The Map Marathon (Obrist, 2014). If anything, mapping in art seems to have exploded: the map is dead, long live the map! (Wood, 2006, p. 11). This chapter revisits aspects of this decades-long history, discerning some patterns within this uptake. Many of these exhibitions proceeded without much reference to their predecessors and overviews of their emergence and the changing roles of maps in art remain scarce, an abundance of catalogues notwithstanding. Another concern is to examine some mindsets and expectations of artists, curators, and external commentators working with maps or mapping today, many of whom are exploring or attempting to ameliorate the excesses of late capitalism. Given the map’s long association with colonization’s legacies, it could be asked what the increase of particular kinds of mapping practices evokes. A shift from “the map” to “mapping” will be considered, representing a move away from artefact and signs toward process and social engagement. A more culturally expanded discussion of mapping in art beyond the Western tradition as a universal concept—as distinct from its near worldwide distribution—is required, and reinforced. This chapter therefore grapples with notions of the changing function and status of mapping in art, opening out definitions that have created expectations and limits on what is possible and, perhaps, desirable.
