Reviews 198 Art & the Public Sphere 1. Exhibition travelled to the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (21 February–15 May 2016) and the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (17 September 2016– 1 January 2017). LEAP BEFORE YOU LOOK: BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE 1933–1957, INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, BOSTON, 10 OCTOBER 2015– 24 JANUARY 2016 1 Reviewed by Johanna Gosse, Columbia University What is an exhibition? Is it a machine for generating experience? Or rather, is it a specific medium, equipped with its own inherent logic, or to borrow Clement Greenberg’s famous phrase, a ‘unique and proper area of compe- tence’? Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College, 1933–1957, organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston, offers an opportunity to reconsider what an exhibition is, and, more to the point, what it can be expected to do. Black Mountain College was a short-lived experiment in liberal arts educa- tion located near Asheville, North Carolina. Though the school shut down in 1957, it has since achieved mythical status as a home-grown American avant- garde utopia. During its near quarter-century of existence, the College was host to catalytic encounters between an international cast of artists, writers and thinkers, many of whom influenced or directly participated in what Allan Kaprow called ‘the alchemies of the 1960s’ (1958). As a result, the name ‘Black Mountain’ refers not so much to a specific time and place or cohesive style, but rather, to an illustrious list of faculty and alumni who collectively have exerted a disproportionate influence on post-war American art. Beyond its influential diaspora, the College’s broader legacy (and its persistent utopian myth) is rooted in the communal ethos and intersecting practices that char- acterized campus life: experiential learning, interdisciplinary collaboration, the work programme, direct democracy, and the opportunity to create art in relative freedom from market pressures. Though its reputation as a utopian Figure 1: Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957, 2015. Installation view. Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Photo: Charles Mayer.