Curating the context: re-enacting and reconstructing exhibitions as ways of studying the past

How is history narrated through art exhibitions? Which are the curatorial tools in order to represent the past? The article focuses on those methodologies of analysis and study which operate on the border of different disciplines in order to produce art exhibitions representing or re-enacting past events or periods. The curatorial practices analysed are re-enactment and historical reconstruction: how these strategies influence the experience and knowledge of the past? The curatorial practice of Germano Celant, and in particular two of his recent works, will here be studied: the re-enactment When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013 and the historical reconstruction Post Zang Tumb Tuuum. Art Life Politics: Italy 1918–1943.