Lately, I find myself weary of exhibitions built around the familiar logic of putting things in their “right” place: carefully selected, carefully lit, carefully balanced, each work given the appropriate amount of space and attention so that it can be properly appreciated. Group exhibitions in particular seem increasingly trapped in this kind of competence. Everything works. Everything is where it should be. And somehow, nothing much is at stake.

We have become so accustomed to the choreography of exhibitions — to the discreet calculations behind what goes where, what meets what, what is given space and what is allowed to speak — that perhaps the greatest risk is no longer a bad installation. Perhaps it is that we have become too good at recognising a good one.