Exhibition: Selecting Resolved Work and Justifying Curatorial Choices
The exhibition is the internally assessed, externally moderated 40% component. It tests whether you can present a coherent body of resolved artworks and explain your curatorial decisions. The examiner assesses the works, your curatorial rationale and the exhibition texts.
Core rules
- SL: 4–7 resolved artworks. HL: 8–11 resolved artworks.
- Curatorial rationale: SL 400 words; HL 700 words.
- Each artwork needs an exhibition text of no more than 500 characters.
- “Resolved” means finished to a standard suitable for public display, not merely completed. Select for conceptual necessity, technical resolution and visual dialogue.
- The rationale should explain the theme, selection, relationships between works and how the body of work communicates your intentions. Exhibition texts should identify the work and add brief interpretive context, not repeat the rationale.
Worked example
An HL student has 13 works about migration and domestic space and must select 8–11. They reject two for unresolved composition and one because it repeats an earlier solution without adding meaning. They keep nine and sequence them from intimate interiors to fragmented maps. The 700-word rationale argues that “home is a portable structure,” explaining why each work is necessary to that argument. The exhibition text for one mixed-media piece gives title, media, dimensions and a short note on the use of family photographs. The reasoning is curatorial: selection is justified by resolution, meaning and relationships, not by effort or quantity.
Traps that cost marks
- Including weak or unresolved works because you made them.
- Writing a rationale that lists works instead of arguing for their selection.
- Exceeding 500 characters in an exhibition text or the word limit in the rationale.
- Repeating the rationale in every text.
- Choosing a theme that the works do not visibly support.