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CURATIONISM
Curators used to be experts who lived in the back of museums.
Nowadays 'curators' can be anybody involved in the thematic presentation of visual arts exhibitions. Typically the contemporary curator is a organiser or administrator. Whilst good organisers and administrators are a blessing there seems no reason to expect them to be good critics or analysts of contemporary art.
Curators are not themselves particularly privileged. Like artists, curators are used as the workhorses and dogbodies of the art system. It is often seen as 'not -too-well-paid -but -interesting- work' for a middle-class young woman with an art history degree. A handy second income nonetheless. Top jobs go to men, often upper middle class academics.
As a strata of the art system, curators intervene to regulate contemporary art. Although they have little power themselves, and often struggle for resources, they have been part and party to taking influence and power away from artists.
Although curators are generally not comfortable discussing visual artwork, unless its 'meaning' has been spelt out for them, they have formed or evolved an distinctive curatorial sub-culture. This has is own practices and norms, its own catch words, current themes and fads.
The curatorial sub-culture is fiercely mimetic: it functions by copying, and deriving its norms from models that are seen a genuinely current or original. It is a heavy importer of ideas and concepts from fields that are seen as appropriately intellectual or contemporary, such as Critical Theory and Continental Philosophy. Ironically, most curators are practical administrators and do not feel very comfortable with either uninterpreted artworks or demanding intellectual perspectives.
Before the strategic intervention of the curator class, exhibition organisers were regarded as just that - people who organised exhibitions, hopefully capable and enlightened of their kind. Exhibitions were usually of two types. The Solo Exhibition or the Group Exhibition. The point of going to exhibitions was to find work that had genuine merit, that you might buy if you had the money, or that you could look at and enjoy otherwise.
The growth of the curator-caste in the art sysytem parallels and reflects the growth of the thematic exhibition .
Thematic exhibitions were once more or less confined to synoptic, historical exhitions. Gradually, however, the thematic exhibition displaced the centrality of both the individual artist and the individual artwork. In their place was put the gallery, the 'space', the exhibition as a whole.
In thematic exhibitions a group of individual artists are selected by the curator. In this role artists contribute works that endorse or embody the the curators stated theme or objective. Curators may cast themselves in various moulds depending on their own background, ambitions and circumstances. Curators who are particularly carried away with their roles like to make parallels with other artforms where individual performances have to be brought together and integrated and try to make a case for curationism as a artform.
The current phenomena of curation distorts the culture of artistic activity and contributes to the institutionalised character of current contemporary art.
Simplistically, curators become the gatekeeper to modest resources and opportunities for artists. The curatorial role does not require that curators commit themselves financially or ideologically to the artworks, the artists or the themes they provisionally support. It is sufficient that they are doing their curatorial job. Curators act as employees. They may not really like, or understand, or believe in, the work and artists and themes that they administer, exhibit and write about.
Instead of responding to an artistic environment created by independent artists and their commited supporters, curationism generates a culture and climate were artists are engaged in fleshing out changing trends, themes and fads of administrators.
As an excruciating final touch, curators also occupy the role of official interpreters of exhibitions for the public - writing or commissioning texts for the now obligatory foam-board expositions and the glossy and soon-to-be-remaindered exhibition catalogue.
In many sectors artists and curators are in a head to head competition for resources.
In the UK, in living memory, artists could occasionally receive substantial funding and employment directly for working as artists. Now resources are diverted to supporting galleries and their staff payrolls. In this struggle between money fror primary creative workers and money for secondary workers involved in the presentation of art, creative workers are losing out all along the line. The share of resources that trickles down to supporting creative workers is an embarassment. and a scandal.
There has been an extensive 'amateurisation' or 'de-professionalisation' of the contemporary artists. It is now normal for artists to support their art work by paid non-artwork or from income from a partner. The sums of money involved in commissions, competitions, sales and artists fees are not economic.
The curators I have met and worked with have been fine. This is not a critique of the personal qualities of curators. This is a critique of art's growing institutionisation and distorted form, which involves many roles and players.
When art is increasing a product of its institutions, it is time for artists to assert their creative autonomy as individuals rather than simply compete as institutional players.
There are also situations, however, where artists have common cause with curators.
In many places the local contemporary art scene is little more than a charade. There is no real local constituency for contemporary art and no local art market. At openings there are only curators and artists, who both have a professional interest in being there.
This is a 'pretend' local contemporary art scene, which is based on the collusion that curators will treat us as real contemporary artists if we pretend they are real contemporary curators.
The work of moving from this notional or 'pretend' contemporary art scene to a 'real' one is precisely the task of making real art history happen in your own place and time. Artists and curators could work together to make this happen but only if our common aim is to short-circuit of the usual networks of institutionalised contemporary art..
(
Nowadays 'curators' can be anybody involved in the thematic presentation of visual arts exhibitions. Typically the contemporary curator is a organiser or administrator. Whilst good organisers and administrators are a blessing there seems no reason to expect them to be good critics or analysts of contemporary art.
Curators are not themselves particularly privileged. Like artists, curators are used as the workhorses and dogbodies of the art system. It is often seen as 'not -too-well-paid -but -interesting- work' for a middle-class young woman with an art history degree. A handy second income nonetheless. Top jobs go to men, often upper middle class academics.
As a strata of the art system, curators intervene to regulate contemporary art. Although they have little power themselves, and often struggle for resources, they have been part and party to taking influence and power away from artists.
Although curators are generally not comfortable discussing visual artwork, unless its 'meaning' has been spelt out for them, they have formed or evolved an distinctive curatorial sub-culture. This has is own practices and norms, its own catch words, current themes and fads.
The curatorial sub-culture is fiercely mimetic: it functions by copying, and deriving its norms from models that are seen a genuinely current or original. It is a heavy importer of ideas and concepts from fields that are seen as appropriately intellectual or contemporary, such as Critical Theory and Continental Philosophy. Ironically, most curators are practical administrators and do not feel very comfortable with either uninterpreted artworks or demanding intellectual perspectives.
Before the strategic intervention of the curator class, exhibition organisers were regarded as just that - people who organised exhibitions, hopefully capable and enlightened of their kind. Exhibitions were usually of two types. The Solo Exhibition or the Group Exhibition. The point of going to exhibitions was to find work that had genuine merit, that you might buy if you had the money, or that you could look at and enjoy otherwise.
The growth of the curator-caste in the art sysytem parallels and reflects the growth of the thematic exhibition .
Thematic exhibitions were once more or less confined to synoptic, historical exhitions. Gradually, however, the thematic exhibition displaced the centrality of both the individual artist and the individual artwork. In their place was put the gallery, the 'space', the exhibition as a whole.
In thematic exhibitions a group of individual artists are selected by the curator. In this role artists contribute works that endorse or embody the the curators stated theme or objective. Curators may cast themselves in various moulds depending on their own background, ambitions and circumstances. Curators who are particularly carried away with their roles like to make parallels with other artforms where individual performances have to be brought together and integrated and try to make a case for curationism as a artform.
The current phenomena of curation distorts the culture of artistic activity and contributes to the institutionalised character of current contemporary art.
Simplistically, curators become the gatekeeper to modest resources and opportunities for artists. The curatorial role does not require that curators commit themselves financially or ideologically to the artworks, the artists or the themes they provisionally support. It is sufficient that they are doing their curatorial job. Curators act as employees. They may not really like, or understand, or believe in, the work and artists and themes that they administer, exhibit and write about.
Instead of responding to an artistic environment created by independent artists and their commited supporters, curationism generates a culture and climate were artists are engaged in fleshing out changing trends, themes and fads of administrators.
As an excruciating final touch, curators also occupy the role of official interpreters of exhibitions for the public - writing or commissioning texts for the now obligatory foam-board expositions and the glossy and soon-to-be-remaindered exhibition catalogue.
In many sectors artists and curators are in a head to head competition for resources.
In the UK, in living memory, artists could occasionally receive substantial funding and employment directly for working as artists. Now resources are diverted to supporting galleries and their staff payrolls. In this struggle between money fror primary creative workers and money for secondary workers involved in the presentation of art, creative workers are losing out all along the line. The share of resources that trickles down to supporting creative workers is an embarassment. and a scandal.
There has been an extensive 'amateurisation' or 'de-professionalisation' of the contemporary artists. It is now normal for artists to support their art work by paid non-artwork or from income from a partner. The sums of money involved in commissions, competitions, sales and artists fees are not economic.
The curators I have met and worked with have been fine. This is not a critique of the personal qualities of curators. This is a critique of art's growing institutionisation and distorted form, which involves many roles and players.
When art is increasing a product of its institutions, it is time for artists to assert their creative autonomy as individuals rather than simply compete as institutional players.
There are also situations, however, where artists have common cause with curators.
In many places the local contemporary art scene is little more than a charade. There is no real local constituency for contemporary art and no local art market. At openings there are only curators and artists, who both have a professional interest in being there.
This is a 'pretend' local contemporary art scene, which is based on the collusion that curators will treat us as real contemporary artists if we pretend they are real contemporary curators.
The work of moving from this notional or 'pretend' contemporary art scene to a 'real' one is precisely the task of making real art history happen in your own place and time. Artists and curators could work together to make this happen but only if our common aim is to short-circuit of the usual networks of institutionalised contemporary art..
(
17 Comments
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Comment by Rob Van Beek on 19 August 2008 at 4:20pm -
I don't want to lay blame at the door of curators especially, Their current role is symptomatic of a wider state of affairs. Another time I might put art education, the art media, academics or artists themselves under scrutiny.
I feel there is enormous scope for artists to pursue opportunities for which there is an unrealistic amount of competition.
At the same time artists are giving up real life chances, such as having a meaningful career or starting a family, by pursuing vain hopes of artistic success and artworld recognition.
Ironically it is not the artworld that confers status or recognition and success. The artworld confers only a provisional view of what is currently considered successful and contemporary art.
You asked about scope for artists taking back power?
Well, this is up for discussion. But at the moment I deal with these issues along these lines::
At a personal level, as an individual:
I try to avoid the petty effects of being an institutionalised contemporary artist.
As a rule I don't submit or apply for things, I don't do C.V.s, Artists' Statements etc. I prefer unselected exhibitions. Curators etc.have to approach me to offer me opportunities (which, of course, they do in their droves). Opportunities have to be genuine. I at least have to cover all my costs, I do not accept that doing an exhibition for 'the sake of my CV' is a sufficient reason. I did not become an artist to end up with a copius CV.
As a member of a group or network of artists:
I live in hope of getting original art projects going in places were originality is not supposed to occur. I would like to develop the methodology of undermining the art world's sense of geography.
The Reno Motel phenomena that you mentioned looks like an interesting example. Successful local initiatives will always be co-opted by established institutions and artists will always sell out saying banal things like ' I only want a comfy life by selling my paintings', therefore there will always be a place for artists who are prepared to do something for more interesting reasons.
As a member of the new global visual artists community:
I argue that we can reclaim our own sense of value, importance, recognition and success that parallels and ultimately undermines the current art system. The current system is obviously absurdly narrow, confined to a few centres and obsessed with status and rank - which, as a section of the luxury goods market, it has to be.
Really art should be part of the wider symbolic exchange that all communities should have.
As artists when we give something, we should get something back in return, something real and symbolic. Today most artist are submitting their ideas and their work and getting nothing back. We risk getting locked in a cycle of abusive and addictive failure.
The current art system just cannot sustain the hopes and ambitions of artists around the world and it can only deliver an infrastructure for the art that reproduces its habitual social and geographical hierarchies.
Curators, critics, academics, artists are therefore faced with some interesting choices at the moment. Art history is full of moments when legitimising institutions have given way (medieval guilds, renaissance workshops, academies and salons were all successfully artistically challenged)
The 'luxury' art market and the museum of contemporary art are the twin towers of the contemporary artworld.
It's hard to imagine an artistic culture that thrived better without them. But not impossible.
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Comment by ann tracy on 20 August 2008 at 12:06am -
it's tough being an artist - no matter what the media... having worked in the world of theatre and film, I know that only 10% of the members of SAG (Screen Actors Guild) and Equity (stage actors union) make their living through the arts. Knowing this, many artists in theatre and film would say, so? yeah, there's lots of competition out there - deal with it or don't play the game.
Artists don't have to give up "real life chances", that is a choice, not a mandate. One can always do one's art part time until conditions are ready.... which is something that I did for about 30 years.... before I was able to devote more of my time to what I wanted to do.
I do agree with you that it's silly to do shows just to pump up one's resume.... CV just sounds soooo academic. I could only take the academic world long enough to get my BA.... university types drive me a tad crazy as they've spent so much time in their ivory towers, they forget what the rest of the world is like...
and it's also stupid to pay money for a vanity show.... most everyone knows who the vanity galleries are and it's not impressive on a resume....
However... it's good to get your work out there... one of the things that I do is to donate work to nonprofit groups for silent auctions, ONLY if the institution is willing to share auction proceeds with the artist. So while you're not getting your full price, you are helping a nonprofit do their good work.
Go for it..... start some original art projects that don't have curators etc associated with them. Sounds like you really need to do something like that to pave the way for other artists. Talk is talk, action is doing something about the talking, making it real.
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Comment by Rob Van Beek on 20 August 2008 at 2:29pm
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I am a member of a studio group called Oldknows Studio Group, we share and manage a commercial space in Nottingham, the city where I live. We are in the process of creating a small exhibiting space in the studio called The Actual Wall.
I've been ruminating about thematic exhibitions and curating because the group's reflex was to create a theme and make and select work around the theme.
I feel this mirrors the current curationist trend.
I make what I make, my work and my life doesn't have discrete narrative units in it or convenient sub-themes.
I am an artist, not a producer of artifacts for somebody else's thematic projects.
As you say, in true American style, deal with it.
I will muddle through and compromise on this one. In the future I will try to find ways of using the space to explore more artist-centred approaches.
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Comment by ann tracy on 22 August 2008 at 12:02am
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Good for you for being part of a group that will have it's own exhibition space.... I know what you mean about thematic shows.... I drove myself crazy over making something appropriate for their theme... but made it in the show... in San Diego...
but then again.... something abstract would relate to just about any theme, wouldn't it?
all the best....
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Comment by Mik Godley on 23 August 2008 at 11:59am -
I suppose compromise is in the nature of any collective/collaborative activity, but it can be very worthwhile.
I'm wondering, however, if a network such as this (or indeed a space such as this) being wider than the physical geography of this place, offers opportunities to create new cells of less disparate individuals, with smaller idea-spans to compromise?
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Comment by ann tracy on 23 August 2008 at 7:56pm
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Hmmm... not quite sure what you mean by "offers opportunities to create new cells of less disparate individuals, with smaller idea-spans to compromise?"
Do you mean groups of artists who do projects together? I have no idea what an "Idea-span" is, but then again I'm a refugee from art school.... never went, just started doing it.
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Comment by Rob Van Beek on 24 August 2008 at 12:40pm
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I saw Derek Hampson in the pub last night and he accused me of being nostagic for modernist groups, cliques, movements etc. He claimed they didn't really exist - that they are a myth, or an artifact of art historical writers etc.
I think it is always interesting when people interact and create something beyond individual performances. Cliques, group, movements can assert their own values, sometimes they turn out to be right, sometimes not.
Cliques give people a strength and confidence of face hostility, indifference etc. But cliques can also be horribly up-their-own-arse.
Whether the kind of network you get on this site can challenge the social and geographical hierarchy of contemporary art remains to be seen. We are communicating about art and with images of work, rather than through art and with art directly.
Contemporary art seems to be about making work in the present, rather than as a result as series of lags, delays, derivations.
Individuals have to change and develop very rapidly. Sometimes changes are better made in interactive groups.
The problem with the kind of artists social network we have in Nottingham is that it is basically social and supportive rather than critical, ambitious or aggressive..
But I feel if all else fails, it is important that individuals 'own' their own work, rather feel they have lived as unpaid suppliers of not-contemporary- enough work to the artworld.
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Comment by Sorg on 29 August 2008 at 6:13am -
movements... they DON'T happen anymore. Can you, as an artist, imagine ANY artists agreeing to make art in the same way as ANYONE else? We don't argue about the things they used to argue about when MOVEMENTS happened. Sorry to keep yelling here, but we don't argue about Abstract vs. Realism etc. What do we argue about NOW in the artworld?...
...the answer is money and how it's distributed. Since Art is a charity now, we look into the specifics of "who's getting what and for doing what?"
I heard a great saying... When bankers get together they talk about art; when artists get together they talk about money.
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Comment by Sorg on 29 August 2008 at 6:25am
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I'm guessing that Rob Van Beek has already read this book, being a British intellectual-artist-type, but anyone else, just in case you haven't read it... "High Art Lit" by Julian Stallabrass. His enlightenment of how money flows (using the Young British Artist phenomenon as example) is excruciatingly vivid and cuts through the bullshit. Yes I said shit.
In the book he talks about artists-turned-curators or artists-moonlighting-as-curators and the challenge they face being true to curatorial standards, (if there are such things). But ya' know what, they did the job, they got their fame and showed humanity just how vacuous it really is. And maybe THAT is what our generation needed to be told. We're just empty headed consumers (especially the yanks) –DEAL WITH IT–make art that DEALS WITH IT!
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would events like Nada Motel be one way of artists reasserting themselves?