Towards a Civic Contract of Performance: Pitfalls of Decolonizing the Exhibitionary Complex at Brett Bailey’s Exhibit B

Abstract

The performance installation Exhibit A and B by South African theatre artist Brett Bailey has been touring Europe since 2010. Its twelve tableaux vivants provide a selective survey of European racial histories interspersed with displays of contemporary African refugees. It has increasingly provoked opposition by antiracist activists who compare the show to a ‘human zoo’ that objectifies black performers, facilitates emotional release for white European audiences, and benefits only the white director. In London, protests led to the cancellation of the show. This article examines these charges and sets them in the context of Afro-German theatre and activism. It advances an alternative reading of Exhibit B as a two-pronged intervention in European discourses of security on the one side, and in the restructuring of European museums on the other.

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