06/10/2026
🔖 "Notes from a Pathfinder in the Curatorial Jungle"
In this essay, I would like to outline some of the guiding principles that have shaped my work as a curator , art scholar , and designer. In my exhibitions, I regularly explore overarching themes and questions, seeking to illuminate them from various angles through deliberate contrasts. In doing so, I arrange artworks from different eras, origins, and materials into stimulating constellations, so that each space within the exhibition presents itself differently while remaining part of a larger whole. To achieve this, I utilise the full range of the design languages used in an exhibition. A close look at many exhibitions reveals that the language is purely informative, narrative, or strictly didactic. Yet there are abundant opportunities to make exhibitions speak by composing them not only narratively but also as discursive, associative, theatrical, exploratory , or ludic, or as reflective, meditative, or relaxing. It is the stimulating mix of different curatorial strategies and various exhibition languages that make a visit to an exhibition worthwhile.
🔖【About the Author｜Dr. Harald P. Kraemer】
Harald Kraemer studied art history, classical archaeology, and history at the universities of Trier, Vienna, and the private University of Witten/Herdecke. He completed his PhD in museum informatics and digital collections at the University of Trier. The handbook resulting from his PhD is considered one of the standard works on digital museum documentation in the German-speaking world. A graduate of the MA course for exhibition curators at the Institute for Cultural Studies in Vienna, he is a renowned exhibition maker and designer with nearly 100 exhibitions to his credit. Kraemer co-developed several MA programmes, such as Media Arts Cultures, as well as Curating Art and Media, and has taught at universities in Bern, Cologne, Glasgow, Hong Kong, and Zurich, among others. He has been working as a curator at UMAG since 2022 and teaches in the MA programme in Museum Studies at HKU.
Content excerpted from Hong Kong Art Education Journal, Issue 2, 2025
Written by｜Dr. Harald P. Kraemer (Exhibition Curator, University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong)
Read the full article｜https://www.hksea.org.hk/hkarteducationjournal
