Smoothing the interface between artist and public, constructing it even, demands a skillset beyond applying white emulsion to gallery walls.
Yet the latter is the most common perception of the curator’s lot. Art curation is an ill-defined metier even among its proponents, hovering as it does somewhere in the metaphorical spaces between archivist, talent scout, aesthetic visionary, removals operative and public relations officer. We could add another five job descriptions to the list and still be no closer to defining the role or the challenges therein. A certain dexterity with plywood and an ability to paint walls white should neither be overlooked simply because it fits a stereotype.
Stasis or concrete definition then, are not included. Perhaps that can be the starting point. Whether or not the curator is adept at restoration; verges into the territory of the collector; is an expert in cajoling sponsorship from skeptical donors or shares a collaborative and long-term journey of development with a single artist (or venue), the only constant is that the mix is rarely duplicated.
subjects. The technique sought to be deliberately egalitarian and inclusive, allowing for an expression of values by the curators of institutions ranging from Vyner Street popups to some of the art world’s best-appointed galleries. Besides that, the opportunity to respond to openly leading questions such as ‘Do you think controversy is a positive force in art or a conceptual red herring?’ allowed for a range of views, often a degree less predictable than one might have expected from the interviewee.
As interlocutor between art and viewer, the curator faces certain challenges – tasked with whetting the appetite and preparing the subject to receive the transmitted emotional, technical, allegorical, mythic, symbolic or figurative blow envisioned by the artist.
Often, the most palpable ‘blow’ is the one created not by the artist(s) represented, but by the experience effected by the curator. It happens more often than is credited. Who or what, then, does the curator serve? The artist, the viewer, the exhibition, the patrimony, the public? There are surely acceptable limits to the extent a curator may represent the oeuvre of an artist before the creativity of curator impinges upon the reception of the artwork. Another variable, another ‘depends on the situation’.
‘It puts particular pressure on securing loans as major Picassos are much in demand and difficult to borrow’.
Celebrity, controversy, corporate identity. Are they pitfalls, distractions or tools which a curator may choose to wield? It should never be forgotten that flirtation and collaboration with the industries of music, fashion, advertising, film and marketing are far from being deemed taboo by artists of either the present or the past. The creativity of the curator and the attendant proprieties of the role may be fodder for the spleen of critics indefinitely, but without it, things would certainly be a lot less interesting.