These interviews investigate the curatorial position in current practices, structured to un-glove the curator's hand in a series of 5 questions. Additional questions and interviews delve into the interviewee's specialized experiences.
Claudine Ise, Writer/Critic for Bad at Sports, Arts Writer
Claudine has taken the liberty of re-ordering the questions.
1. Roles of artist, critic, historian, and curator are exchanged loosely. How have these shifting roles affected the curator's authority? What roles within the art world have you moved between?
I've moved between a number of different roles and will hopefully continue to do so. My very first art-world-type job was as an assistant at a commercial photography gallery. I went to graduate school right out of college and eventually earned a Ph.D. in Film, Literature and Culture from USC, so I've spent a lot of time in the Academy, too. While I was writing my dissertation, I had a freelance job as an art critic for the Los Angeles Times, where I wrote a monthly gallery reviews column and also wrote a few feature articles on art-related programs for the television section. In Los Angeles, I also wrote many art reviews for magazines like Artweek and the late, great Art issues (both now defunct). I've also worked as a museum curator in university museums--as assistant curator of contemporary art at UCLA's Hammer Museum in L.A. and associate curator of exhibitions at the Wexner Center (Ohio State University) in Columbus, Ohio. The diverse roles I've played - and the different locales in which I've played them - have given me a fairly wide perspective on how different art worlds "work," but the fact that I've moved about so much, and have never become permanently enmeshed in any single field, has also led to my becoming something of a permanent art world outsider. I like that though.
As to the first half of your question: how do shifting roles between artist, historian, critic and curator affect the curator's authority? I'd say it depends on where the particular curator you're talking about is working. If they're working at the Art Institute, I don't think it makes much of a difference how fluid those 'shifting roles' might be elsewhere, because the Institution holds its own authority. If the curator is curating a show at a smaller venue or even an apartment gallery, their curatorial "authority" has already been diluted by virtue of the casualness and/or intimacy of the space where the curatorial act is staged.
2. Historically, curators conferred the status of 'art,' but since artists started curating exhibitions, this function has been complicated. How does the curatorial position function in contemporary practices? What is the prime responsibility of the curator?
Haven't artists always also curated exhibitions? I'm not sure how historically new this function actually is. I'll start with the last question and work outwards. What is the prime responsibility of the curator? Again, it depends on where that curator works and/or where the curatorial act is being staged. Are they working within or outside an institution? If the curator is working within an institution, the curator's responsibilities must necessarily be defined by that institution. But the curator's position also differs vastly depending on where that curator locates his/her own practice. So, for example: Philip Von Zweck and Dominic Molon have both curated shows at the MCA, right, but under very different frameworks and with different expected outcomes. Von Zweck is an artist who was selected for a slot in the MCA's 12 x 12 series, and who used that opportunity as a platform to curate other artists into his project so that they, too, could share in the experience (and, presumably, the exposure) to a certain degree. Now, to me the key question is, to what degree was Von Zweck's act of curation substantively different from those of Molon's (who has since moved on to a curatorial position at another institution)? In some ways, it was radically different, and in other ways not all that different at all. That said, however, I am not sure how much difference it makes whether it is an artist curating a show or someone else in terms of the outcome. It's almost like this question presumes that artists are automatically in a position of powerlessness and by taking on the act of curation they are vaulting themselves into a position of powerfulness. I don't agree. What I do think makes a difference is the nature of the discursive space in which curation happens. When Michelle Grabner and Annika Marie curated "Picturing the Studio" for the Sullivan Gallery at The School of the Art Institute, they delivered a really great, intelligent and provocative show that was nevertheless not unlike a show you'd see at the MCA or any other art institution, in terms of its authoritative presentation of ideas, etc. But when Michelle and Brad Killam curate their program of solo projects at the Suburban the outcomes are quite different and far more open-ended -- the latter venue, for example, dispenses with the use of wall text, descriptive press releases, and other discursive frameworks that tend to be automatic in institutional settings. That's where the most significant ruptures lie, I think - much more so than in the fact that Michelle is an artist who has assumed the "powerful" role of curator too.
3. How do you justify relational decisions in an exhibition? How does the role of mediation affect how rewarding your practice versus the affect it has on the involved works of art?
Hm, well, as we all know, many so-called "relational" decisions about which piece goes where and how they are spatially contextualized are based solely on logistics - this section of the gallery has the appropriate square footage, that one is easier to darken for video, etc. etc. When you're doing thematic shows the placement of objects generally doesn't need to be chronological, so a lot of the time it comes down to what pieces rub up against each other the right way, so to speak, by sparking new connections through their juxtaposition. The second part of your question -- 'How does the role of mediation affect how rewarding your practice versus the affect it has on the involved works of art?'-- to me seems to imply that on one end of things, there's the curator who "messes about" with works of art in ways that are somehow satisfying or "rewarding" to the curator but which are potentially damaging to the integrity of the work of art. I don't fully agree with that premise. I think works of art have incredible elasticity - they can take a lot of pushing, pulling, stretching, etc. and still retain their "shape" despite being placed within a variety of discursive contexts.
4. Since the 70's, the exhibition space has extended into independent galleries, public outdoor space, and the internet. How do the frameworks of institutional versus non-institutional settings affect the curatorial authority in your experience?
I think institutional frameworks (or the lack of them) have the greatest impact on so-called curatorial authority, much more so than whether an artist curates an exhibition or a critic does. Because I've done my time in various types of capital "I" Institutions, I can say with some degree of confidence that I don't think most curators hold as much authority as some of us think they do - not even within their own institutions! And if they do hold authority, it's because we as audiences hand it over to them, not because they possess it automatically once they assume that title. That said, I think creating alternative spaces for the exhibition of art is a common way of breaking down perceptions of "curatorial authority" and, just as importantly, of the implied distance between the work of art and the viewer that's been historically built up by institutional as well as commercial gallery exhibitions. Domestic exhibition spaces, for example, replace the institutionally implied sense of distance with a dynamic of hosting/hospitality, where viewers take the role of invited guests who are given the privilege of intimate experiences with art - which tend to be more socially-engaged experiences as well. In the apartment gallery/domestic exhibition space, looking at is also 'living with.' Chicago's public art provides another example of how non-institutional settings affect not only curatorial authority but the work of art itself. What I love about public art is that over time the public really does begin to develop a sense of ownership around the art and even to some degree they take the liberty of rhetorically reshaping it. Take Anish Kapoor's "Cloud Gate" in Millennium Park -- it's been popularly renamed "the Bean" because Chicagoans feel like they know it well enough to nickname it! When it succeeds, public art becomes this familiar experience that people engage with over a long period of time -- you have these specific memories of it, you go back again and again over the years, you take pictures in front of it, goofy wonderful things like that. I mean yeah, someone curated Cloud Gate into the park but who really cares? The Bean has gone beyond narrow notions of cultural authority and become something much more culturally meaningful than any small white placard stuck next to it could ever "frame" via its so-called "authority." The Internet provides this vast other type of space where curation is happening on a huge popular level. I'm super-interested in Tumblr right now, largely because of the types of casual, enthusiasm-based curatorial practices that take place within it - practices that aren't even self-consciously formulated as a form of 'curation' per se. I find that really interesting and exciting.
5. How visible are you within the structure of art presentation? Do you reveal your role as mediator?
Well, when I was curating, the types of institutions I worked for afforded me a fairly limited set of institutional "moves" in terms of my own curatorial practices. So I was visible as a "mediator" in the usual ways that such things are announced - I had my name printed in the catalogue and press release, I was the author of primary essays, I spoke on panels in conjunction with the show, blah blah blah. The kind of thematic shows I tended to do were already pretty speculative though -- the viewer was called upon to do a fair amount of work themselves, by filling in the blanks or connecting the dots in ways that were meaningful to them as individuals. I tried to make shows that had a lot of room for people to move around in them, conceptually speaking. As an arts writer, I try to reveal my own subjectivity as overtly and often as possible. I don't always write for formats that allow this, but I try to be as transparent as I can. Most of what I've written for Bad at Sports has in fact been an extended experiment on my part in writing about art in ridiculously subjective, blatantly transparent ways. Sometimes I've liked the results, sometimes I haven't, but I've enjoyed the liberties that blogging has allowed me to take with the genre of art criticism.
+6. How does art criticism share and differ in responsibilities of curatorial practice? Where in your range of experience do you feel most creative?
Phew, well the state of art criticism is in such a mess right now, I'm not sure any of us can agree on just what responsibilities an art critic has -- and to whom they are responsible, given that so much criticism nowadays takes place in independent (and/or unpaid) formats like blogs and websites right now. But I guess I would argue that critics and curators both share a responsibility to think through local practices by investigating the world of art that immediately surrounds them, and to contextualize those practices within the larger art world as well as beyond that 'art world' per se. Maybe it's because so much of what I produce now takes place on the Internet, but more and more lately I am also feeling a sense of urgency around the notion of presence. For critics, this means not forming judgements about a work of art unless you've physically stood before it. A lot of curators curate objects into their shows without ever having seen them in real life (this is, to a certain extent, unavoidable, for a bunch of pragmatic reasons, but it's still problematic). For sure critics shouldn't do this, and yet the rise of blogging as a primary format for the dissemination of art criticism and commentary has led all of us to write about works of art that we may not have seen or experienced in person. All of us take in so much of the world nowadays via our computer screens, it's easy to forget that most art (my previous comments about Tumblr notwithstanding) still has presence, whether it takes the form of an object, a film, a social interaction - whatever. This last part is mostly just my own personal ethos: I think both critics and curators share a responsibility to remind people that 'the real' still exists. For a critic, that means spending as much time as you can devote to being with art, and by this I mean being present in mind, body, and even in emotion as we stand before the work of art, whatever form that art may take. For a curator, it means doing the same, but also creating situations in which viewers can be present before the work of art in those same ways, too. Anthony Elms, Curator at Gallery 400, Editor of White Walls
Anthony has taken the liberty of re-ordering the questions.
1. Historically, curators conferred the status of 'art,' but since artists started curating exhibitions, this function has been complicated. How does the curatorial position function in contemporary practices? What is the prime responsibility of the curator?Artists functioning as curators has little to no effect on the function of a curator. Are artists as curators not conferring 'art' upon what they gather in exhibitions for an art institution? And besides which, conferring the status of 'art' on something is the crassest and lowliest and least important of the curator's roles. The prime responsibility of the curator is for the exhibition, and the relationship between objects, between makers of objects, and between the audience who experiences the objects and the traditions or makers of the exhibited objects. But even here, the roles change quite a bit if we are talking group exhibition, retrospective, new commission, living artist, dead artist, unauthored object, etc. After all, a contemporary practice does not require the objects displayed to be contemporary. There is really no one prime responsibility.
2. How do you justify relational decisions in an exhibition? How does the role of mediation affect how rewarding your practice versus the affect it has on the involved works of art?
The decisions are justified if they work. Assuming you have not put an artist in an exhibition against their or their estate's desires, new and exciting combinations of objects are the only way new and exiting ways of seeing existing works can develop. The surprise of juxtaposition might be the most rewarding part of putting together an exhibition.3. Since the 70's, the exhibition space has extended into independent galleries, public outdoor space, and the internet. How do the frameworks of institutional versus non-institutional settings affect the curatorial authority in your experience?
The non-institutional space or setting is a figment of the unattuned imagination. All spaces have an institution to them, and if, by some fluke, some magical space without any institutional underpinnings is found, certainly the objects or projects displayed therein will drag their institutional affiliations with them. It is all just a matter of how many voices you hear when you are looking at a project. Some voices whisper, some shout, some clearly enunciate, some speak in garbled tongues.4. Roles of artist, critic, historian, and curator are exchanged loosely. How have these shifting roles affected the curator's authority? What roles within the art world have you moved between?
I have moved between artist, critic, writer, curator and editor. Never historian. Those who exchange roles loosely are lazy and malnourished thinkers. The authority of any one of the roles mentioned is never clearly settled, but constructed by the relationship and balance it maintains vis-a-vis the other roles it engages or rubs closely against. Authority is always crafted and administered through action rather than a hefty cloak donned when the weather is right. That said, some do like to think store-bought crowns will hide their bald spots.5. How visible are you within the structure of art presentation? Do you reveal your role as mediator?
I think very. Yes. Then again, I think all curators do, even if the ones who prefer not to admit as such. Choosing not to reveal yourself does not exclude the possibility you have revealed yourself.+ more: The following interview with Anthony Elms investigates his collection of exhibition ephemera. Student Co-Curator Brook Sinkinson Withrow asks questions regarding the role of secondary exhibition objects and printed matter within the frame of an exhibition and beyond it.
Video and Transcribed Interview will be posted soon
Patrick Bobilin, Co-Curator of Noble & Superior Projects
1. Since the 70's, the exhibition space has extended into independent galleries, public outdoor space, and the internet. How do the frameworks of institutional versus non-institutional settings affect the curatorial authority in your experience?Institutional settings require justification for their institutional structure, ie a museum requires accountants to account for its accounts, to be a bit reductive about it. Therefore, each curatorial action has not only a conceptual but a meta-institutional meaning--how does this decision affect the accountants and how they account their accounts. A non-institutional structure requires no such hierarchy, only commitment, love, compassion and desire.
2. Roles of artist, critic, historian, and curator are exchanged loosely. How have these shifting roles affected the curator's authority? What roles within the art world have you moved between?
To some those roles are exchanged loosely, to others, those roles carry important distinctions. The roles should be shifted and curatorial authority should be question. Curators should be creative artists, with hopefully some understanding of traditional media, but with their greatest understanding coming from collaboration or collage. These roles are exchanged loosely possibly because they require no real training. Curating can be having friends and inviting them over. It can also be the arrangement of canonical works with experimental contemporary works in order to embody a concept without the requirement of a textual crutch.3. How do you justify relational decisions in an exhibition? How does the role of mediation affect how rewarding your practice versus the affect it has on the involved works of art?
I don't understand this question. My misunderstanding leads me to want to say that there is something psychiatric (perhaps in every context artwork finds itself in but) specifically in the use of the word mediation. In fact I'm thinking something more mystical, as in a psychic medium. Putting two pieces of art next to each other changes them both. They are in a proximal relationship and can fulfill one another, or can destroy one another. Relationships between pieces of artwork can be a mystical, alchemical thing.4. Historically, curators conferred the status of 'art,' but since artists started curating exhibitions, this function has been complicated. How does the curatorial position function in contemporary practices? What is the prime responsibility of the curator?
The curator is asked now to meet the demands, not only of an understanding of art history and global art communities (this same demand should apply to artists as well--they are most certainly not exempt), but of understanding the history and technical aspects of contemporary media. The curator has no PRIME responsibility, as the artist has no PRIME responsibility. While there will undoubtedly be a level of specialization, there shouldn't be an aim of specialization. The curator should be like the library scientist, not the blacksmith, more a swiss army knife, rather than a perfectly sharpened scalpel. The primary responsibility should be to understand the requirements of the artist in creating their work, to detect bullshit, to be able to improvise, to be able to persuade (with responsibility, never with tyranny) and to, in the words of Kanye West, "just shut the fuck up sometimes."5. How visible are you within the structure of art presentation? Do you reveal your role as mediator?
My role as mediator is very visible. Not, hopefully in the installation and relation between the artworks, but as one of two facilitators who appreciate and are grateful for the opportunity to share our ideas and our artists' ideas with an audience. I am visible as co-server, -greeter, -director and -host at the gallery. Some small amount of research would reveal that there are only two people running the entire operation, so the list could go on if one desired that to be. My hope is that this is all seamless, as it's not about authority-it's really about support and dissemination, with a little bit of communion.+6. For your recent exhibition, YOU ARE LOOKING AT ART ABOUT LOOKING AT ART, you presented essays about your curatorial practice in addition to contributions from the artists on display. Can you tell us how these essays about curatorial practice contributed to the viewing experience of the exhibition? How does awareness of the curatorial position affect art viewing?
Well, I think this might be for you to decide/editorialize, but my desire was to take a position. Most galleries exist under the umbrella of being all things to all people, never admitting their faults, never admitting their shortcomings by the very fact of being related to visual, and in many cases, academic art--a very small subculture when compared to say, those of us who appreciate jersey shore or the old profile template on Facebook. It's easy to live an entire life inside the art world without ever taking a position on the state of the world around you--put your head down, make your paintings and hope for the best. The conversation never happens without anyone ever taking a stand. So in my essay, I try to make broadstroked judgments, to make bold claims and to hope that some response will happen. So far the response has been positive although colloquial or informal. I hope others feel empowered to make the same kind of claims, what are the problems, who might be responsible, and specifically, should the willfully ignorant be outed and knocked down from their positions of power? And is what we're doing useful, unique, important to the community. I don't think Erin or I would do it if we didn't think so, but how can we get this conversation going? How can we give some direction to other people thinking of starting their own exhibition venue? Give them another option, they are free to agree or disagree, but please someone, take a stand and tell me what you're trying to do. Hopefully it's a success but even not these are things to learn from. An aimless room with disconnected artwork making vague statements is a good opportunity to get things started, but it shouldn't be the default. And unfortunately it seems to be.Erin Nixon, Co-Curator of Noble & Superior Projects
1. Since the 70's, the exhibition space has extended into independent galleries, public outdoor space, and the internet. How do the frameworks of institutional versus non-institutional settings affect the curatorial authority in your experience?For me, executing a curatorial concept needn’t rely on a specific context, but instead embrace the parameters you have to work with in order to engage viewers with the artwork. The institution can communicate a certain level of authority because of its centralization and dominant image in the cultural landscape, while the curator who works ‘from the ground’ can engage with a specific group of constituents more effectively.
2. Roles of artist, critic, historian, and curator are exchanged loosely. How have these shifting roles affected the curator's authority? What roles within the art world have you moved between?
To begin with, I think that assigning roles is way to further a culture of specificity, not taking into account the multitude of capacities any one of these individuals possesses—any one of these roles can be interchangeable. I also hope that we as cultural workers and creative people can overcome the need for hierarchies that are so imbedded in the museum and gallery system. That is why I am carving out a place for myself and those that feel marginalized or alienated by the bastion of commercial art practices. I personally treat curating as a creative practice and the gallery as a site of production, so I don’t see any extensive boundary crossing between any distinct roles. Moving between various ‘art worlds,’ my role shifts depending on what level of bureaucracy I have to negotiate, but I have designed my own curatorial practice to eliminate that concern.3. How do you justify relational decisions in an exhibition? How does the role of mediation affect how rewarding your practice versus the affect it has on the involved works of art?
Relational decisions aren’t always based on rationality- they can be based on blind feeling, gut reaction, alchemical relationships and sheer coincidence. Because I work collaboratively, with another curator and the artists we exhibit, mediation is not a dominant function of my practice. I think it is more rewarding to create and share a unique experience than to simply consign prefabricated objects to their rightful places.4. Historically, curators conferred the status of 'art,' but since artists started curating exhibitions, this function has been complicated. How does the curatorial position function in contemporary practices? What is the prime responsibility of the curator?
In many ways I think curators and artists have the same responsibilities to their audience but, primarily, curators are responsible for conceptualizing a program of artwork to facilitate dialogue and to promote the artistic concerns of the artists they have chosen to exhibit.5. How visible are you within the structure of art presentation? Do you reveal your role as mediator?
My role as a mediator is pretty apparent in my curatorial vision and the stance I have taken in my writing, but not on the actual art and its presence in the exhibition. My role is more the facilitator of an interaction and a supporter of chosen artistic concerns than an authoritative one. This is because I value the integrity of the artists we work with and because the project is truly collaborative rather than the result of one dominant vision.+6. For your recent exhibition, YOU ARE LOOKING AT ART ABOUT LOOKING AT ART, you presented essays about your curatorial practice in addition to contributions from the artists on display. Can you tell us how these essays about curatorial practice contributed to the viewing experience of the exhibition? How does awareness of the curatorial position affect art viewing?
Because the book of writing was a compliment to the show expressing our curatorial concerns and not a didactic I hope that it was the beginning of a stream of dialogue that I think needs to happen. It was an attempt to shun the mystification of the curator and to further a transparency of ideas, motivation, and methodology in an act of solidarity with producers and consumers of ideas and images.