Expanded Animation: Curatorial Practices Between Cinema and the Gallery - Paola Orlić

PANEL 3: CURATING ANIMATION Srijeda, 10. lipnja, 11:55-12:25

Expanded Animation: Curatorial Practices Between Cinema and the Gallery 
Paola Orlić (independent curator)

The increasing presence of animated film at contemporary art exhibitions calls for a reconsideration of the relationship between cinematic temporality and the spatial logic of the gallery. Positioned between the paradigms of the cinematic black box and the exhibitionary white cube, animation offers a particularly productive field for examining the expanded conditions of the moving image, following the concept of expanded cinema proposed by Gene Youngblood. In contrast to the linear and collectively synchronized temporality of cinema, the gallery produces a fragmented and mobile mode of spectatorship, shaped by circulation, variable durations of attention, and the coexistence of multiple works. As noted by Raymond Bellour in his reflections on the “between-the-images” condition of moving images in exhibition spaces, the displacement of film into the gallery fundamentally alters the viewer’s experience. Curating animation in this context therefore requires the development of a specific exhibition dramaturgy of the moving image, addressing spatial sequencing, sound environments, duration, and modes of audience engagement – an issue also explored in curatorial discourse on the moving image by authors such as Chrissie Iles. Drawing on a past decade of curatorial practice connected to the World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb, this paper reflects on strategies for exhibiting animation in a gallery context. The annual exhibition “Behind the Scenes” (2018–2025) presented artists from the festival’s Grand Competition Short Film and Student Film Competition, translating cinematic works into spatial formats through drawings, storyboards, animation loops and installations. Complementary solo exhibitions dedicated to major figures of international animation – including Borivoj Dovniković Bordo, Suzan Pitt, Georges Schwizgebel, William Kentridge, Phil Mulloy and Michaela Pavlátová – further explored the material and processual dimensions of animation. Reflecting on these case studies, the paper examines how curatorial strategies can negotiate the shift from cinematic duration to spatial viewing conditions, proposing the gallery as a productive site for encountering animation within the expanded field of contemporary moving image culture.

Paola Orlić is an art historian, curator and cultural producer recently appointed as the Head of the Administrative Department for Culture and Civil Society in the City of Pula. For more than decade, she has been working in the field of animation, moving image and contemporary visual culture. She has served as festival producer and curator of the exhibition programmes of the World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb, where she has developed and curated a series of gallery projects dedicated to animation and the moving image. Her work includes the annual group exhibition Behind the Scenes as well as large-scale solo exhibitions of internationally acclaimed animation authors and recipients of the Animafest Zagreb Lifetime Achievement Award such as Borivoj Dovniković Bordo, Suzan Pitt, Georges Schwizgebel, William Kentridge, Phill Mulloy, Michaela Pavlátová. Her curatorial practice focuses on the relationship between animation, exhibition space and expanded moving-image culture.