This thesis examines the defining qualities of the retrospective curatorial model using The Michael Snow Project, hosted in 1994 by the Art Gallery of Ontario and The Power Plant, as a case study. A source of modern conceptions of authority, the retrospective employs particular canonization criteria by directing curatorial argument to biographical origins. The occasion of the retrospective therefore imposes a set of interpretive limitations on artworks whose themes problematize authorship, channel elements of chaos or accident, or question historical viewing. A critique of three catalogue essays for the Project demonstrates how—despite curatorial awareness of the retrospective model and various attempts to transcend its structures—these canonization criteria shape interpretation. Both the Project’s critical consciousness of this model and the varied nature of Snow’s corpus present an opportunity to consider the enduring influence of retrospective framing on curatorial discourse, and its continued effects on contemporary deployments of a popular model.