The Gift: Stories of Generosity and Violence in Architecture, presented at the Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Munich (TUM), looked at architecture of the second half of the twentieth century through the prism of gift giving. Using a socioanthropological cross section of four cities—Skopje, North Macedonia; Kumasi, Ghana; Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; and East Palo Alto, California—the exhibition examined the various actors and power constellations involved in the urban development of each site. Through a selection of “gifted buildings,” it addressed issues of postcolonialism, geopolitics within the dynamics of the Cold War, and cooperation among the so-called First, Second, and Third Worlds.
An overview of the major postcolonial art and architecture exhibitions from the 2000s in Europe and internationally highlights the unique aspects and perspective of The Gift within this field. Postcoloniality has been present in art exhibitions since the groundbreaking Documenta 11 curated by Okwui Enwezor in 2002....
University of California Press