ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.- This fall, the Hessel Museum of Art at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard Hessel Museum) presents Exhibitionism: An Exhibition of Exhibitions of Works from the Marieluise Hessel Collection. On view through February 3, 2008, this new installation of the Hessel Collection, curated by White Columns director Matthew Higgs, presents a series of exhibitions in each of the 16 galleries in the newly inaugurated Hessel Museum. Admission is free; museum hours are Wednesdays through Sundays, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m.

"Exhibitionism is, literally, an exhibition of exhibitions. Comprised of a series of 16 autonomous exhibitions and installations, Exhibitionism seeks to explore aspects of the labyrinthine connections, coincidences, discrepancies, and departures within Marieluise Hessel's collection of contemporary art," explains Higgs. "Assembled organically and intuitively over more than three decades, the Hessel Collection is fiercely idiosyncratic."

Higgs notes that "Exhibitionism seeks to amplify this independent vision, through individual exhibitions that variously consider: the social landscape; the poetics of space; language; semiotics; the grotesque; interiority and exteriority; and identity and rupture, among many other questions. Eschewing any attempt at an overview, Exhibitionism instead privileges multiple perspectives, and as such might be characterized as a sampler of thematic approaches to both the analysis and recategorization of a collection."

Concurrently with Exhibitionism, the Center for Curatorial Studies presents Keith Edmier 1991–2007 in the CCS Galleries. The most comprehensive exhibition to date of work by American artist Keith Edmier, the exhibition explores the artist's distinctive fusion of autobiography, popular culture, and collective consciousness in more than 40 works selected from key moments in Edmier's oeuvre.

About Matthew Higgs - Matthew Higgs is an artist, curator, and writer. He is currently the director and chief curator of White Columns, New York's oldest alternative art space. Over the past 15 years he has organized more than150 exhibitions and projects in North America and Europe. A regular contributor to Artforum magazine, Higgs has contributed to recent publications for artists Kay Rosen, Ken Price, John McCracken, Oliver Payne and Nick Relph, Marilyn Minter, Elizabeth Peyton, and Peter Doig amongst others. Recent exhibitions of his own work include solo exhibitions at Murray Guy, New York, and Jack Hanley Gallery, Los Angeles.