N. Elizabeth Schlatter

[added 7/13/10] Lately I seem to notice ever more published collections of essay by curators, often featuring the usual “suspects.” But this relatively slim collection published by Apexart offers some different voices and definitely some different styles and ideas amongst the authors. Though almost every writer mentions Harald Szeemann’s 1969 exhibition “ Live in your Head: When Attitudes Become Form,” because several of these articles are focused on independent curating.

A few essays are practically impenetrable due to theoretical jargon, or as David Levi Strauss calls it, “curatorial rhetoric.” I fully recognize that jargon arises out of a need for a specific vocabulary to discuss commonly agreed upon definitions and ideas, but if I read the word “discursive” one more time. . . And be sure not to miss David Carrier’s 10-page essay “Why Curators Matter,” in which the author, a distinguished critic, writer, and professor, provides no less than 50 footnotes, of which approximately 40 reference his own articles and publications as a means of taking a grand view of exhibition-making over the past few decades. With many writers being so cautious these days about offering opinions, it was fun to read an essay that didn’t mask the author’s high estimation of his own work and his open detest of all things not Manhattan-based (he regards the Brooklyn Museum of Art to be “a relatively marginal museum”!)

Among the gems in this collection are 

• Steven Rand’s introduction to the book, challenging new curators to “venture outside the expected models of exhibition or relationships.” Rand concludes with this pearl of wisdom, “Success is being able to define and pursue the questions worthy of obsession and interest and to be able to maintain a lifelong interest in the pursuit.”
• David Levi Strauss’ comparison of the careers and influences of the iconic independent curators Szeemann and Walter Hopps, in which he likewise concludes with a call for curators to take more risks. 
• András Szántó’s marvelous essay in which he offers curators advice garnered from the editorial profession, such as “know a good story,” “resist forced ideas,” and my favorite, “stamp out jargon. 

Of particular interest to me was new iCI director Kate Fowle’s essay on how the “role of the curator has shifted from a governing position that presides over taste and ideas to one that lies amongst art (or object), space, and audience. The motivation is closer to the experimentation and inquiry of artists’ practices than to the academic or bureaucratic journey of the traditional curator.” She’s talking about what she notes Bruce Altshuler called “the rise of the curator as creator,” (again harkening to Szeemann’s influence) and which relates to a current debate about the concept of “the curatorial” and the fluid boundaries between artist/curator as evidenced in recent exhibitions.

Fowle concludes with a statement that few could disagree with, “We need to start thinking in terms of an expanded field of curating.”

[Added 7/3/10]  This book is the fourth in the Cream series of publications by Phaidon in which 10 "hot" curators pick 10 "hot" artists each to write about. Titles include Cream in 1998, Fresh Cream in 2000, Cream 3 in 2003, Ice Cream in 2007 and forthcoming Creamier due July 2010. Because I am at times insecure and snarky, it behooves me to make fun of these coffee-table tomes as being rather cheesy (no lactose pun intended.) Although I will admit to loving the book's iridescent cover as when I lay it on my desk it beckons people from across the hall. 

But to be honest, the curators represented are remarkable for their careers and intelligence. I'm not going to comment here on the artists they chose since many others have done so. What I'm interested in is the dialogue, which was conducted via the Internet and forms the introductory essay in 2007's Ice Cream.  The participating curators are Sergio Edelsztein, Jens Hoffmann, Lisette Lagnado, Midori Matsui, Shamim M. Momin, Pi Li, Gloria Sutton, Olesya Turkina, Philippe Vergne, and The Wrong Gallery, represented by artist Maurizio Cattelan, and the curators Massimiliano Gioni and Ali Subotnick. If you click on the Amazon link and scroll down, you'll see short write-ups on what these folks were doing circa 2007, as several have moved on to other jobs and exhibition. 

     The discussion begins with an examination of what curating means today and quickly gets into old models (curator as invisible advocate—Massimiliano Gioni) versus new (curator as instigator and possibly an artistic equal—Jens Hoffmann). Gioni begins, saying "At their best, curators should be somehow invisible; they should be present, reliable, and yet step back and disappear." This is a sentiment I agree within my own practice, but several, including others in this dialogue, do not. Later on Gioni rightly clarifies, "As curators we're committed to the artists but we're in the service of institutions. Even the most independent of us work for someone—a museum, a collection, a foundation, an exhibition or a gallery."

[added 2/11/2010, note: this book was provided to me free from the publisher after I requested a copy for review].

Amy Whitaker’s “Museum Legs” is a refreshing, smart, and creative collection of essays regarding museums and visual art, with a focus on how museums and art could be more engaging and relevant to more people. As Whitaker herself says, the ever-growing library of published texts on museum studies is riddled with “Foucault-bombs.”  However, Whitaker’s approach on the topic, while still grounded in art and museum theory, is highly readable and even at times humorous. And she presents her ideas in well-buttressed arguments that flow from one  chapter to the next, interspersed with personal anecdotes and observations.

I’ll jump in with what I considered a weaknesses of her thesis so then I can finish with praise. Whitaker’s primary point is summed up in the introduction, “…this book is an invitation to participate in the arts, to consider museums as political institutions of which everyone is a citizen, and to believe that the base unit of this citizenship is to consider everyone an artist.” While this is a great idea, and certainly the author argues well for more opportunities for visitors to create art in museums, I’m not convinced that this will be a panacea for the disconnect that many people experience with art and museums. To me, it’s a bit like saying that if a symphony wants to flourish, they should consider everyone a musician. And frankly, a lot of people (myself included) have no interest in creating music or learning more about composing. I enjoy concerts as they are, as auditory experiences that are highly artificial (sitting still and quiet in a music hall, just like walking through an art gallery) while allowing my mind to drift along to the melody (or lack thereof). Same with dance, I enjoy watching performances but I don’t want to try out some steps myself. Of course, a better analogy along Whitaker’s lines would be to realize that when I’m drumming my fingers on my desk, I’m making music. Or that when I saunter down the street, I’m dancing. But that’s not going to make me more interested in either performing art.

As an educator and an artist herself, this idea of everyone is an artist resonates with Whitaker’s education and experience. And by all means it can enhance a person’s relationship with art and a museum. But I’m not sure if it would engage adults nearly as much as it would children.

The thing is, even though I’m not sold on Whitaker’s concept, I’m definitely going to keep it in mind as I organize future projects. That’s because her essays are so well written and supported that I would be a fool to disregard her ideas. She makes very astute observations and is critical of some museum education methodology, which I actually found to be refreshing as often museum education’s good intentions outweighs analysis in a big-picture sense.

Particularly strong are her chapters on public trust in museums and labels/exhibition text. These are two topics that have been dissected in numerous articles and books, yet Whitaker brings a fresh, jargon- free look at the issues. I especially enjoyed her mini-treatise on exhibition labels, in which she wrote, “If the curator creates a  
flawless show in which the work stands entirely on its own, the public can feel so engaged with what they see that they forget the flawless execution of the curator.” Over the past few years that’s been my personal goal in curating exhibitions, to become invisible. It can be tricky with thematic exhibitions but it’s not impossible, and I would never claim to perform flawlessly. But I do think that to I do my job well, I need to get out of the way of the visitor and the artwork.

I’ve read Beverly Serrell’s classic “Exhibit Labels” publication, but it’s still helpful to read such Whitaker-isms as the following: “I don’t expect the top curators to be in the gallery every day with the public, but I do expect the text that accompanies the work to be necessary, light, and elegant.”

Whitaker also connects museums to the rampant and increasingly complex visual literacy of the masses, helped in no small part by the media, especially the internet. And towards the end, she sums up the most concrete suggested improvements for museums as “more benches, longer hours, and cheaper tickets.” Finally, she offers a wonderful annotated list of suggested readings. I’ve already starred a number of them to add to my reading list. I recommend adding Museum Legs to yours.

[added 1-21-10] This is a slim but dense collection of 10 interviews conducted by independent curator and scholar Carolee Thea, garnered I believe between 2000 and 2008. The focus is on internationalism with an impressive roster: Joseph Backstein (Russian director of several museums in Moscow), Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (who is curating the 2012 Documenta), Okwui Enwezor (born in Nigeria and currently at the San Francisco Art Institute), Charles Esche (director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven), Massimiliano Gioni (curator at the New Museum in NY), RoseLee Goldberg (founder of PERFORMA festival in NY), Mary Jane Jacob, (Art Institute in Chicago), Pi Li (dealer and curator in Korea), Virginia Perez-Ratton (running a non-profit space in Costa Rica) Rirkrit Tiravanija (master of all enterprises, living in NY, Bangkok, and Berlin).

These are people with complex career paths, many of which cross several national borders in addition to job definitions (critic, artist, curator, dealer, etc.) As such, they operate in a realm of the visual art world that is different than my immediate experience. I can't even keep track of all the biennials, triennials, festivals, and more mentioned in these relatively short essays. And there is a large focus on politics and social engagement, which isn't my strength in terms of curating.

But the interviews are quite engaging. They are short, almost too short, but Thea jumps right into issues and ideas, often focusing on a specific complex project, such as Gioni's collaboratively curated 4th Berlin Biennial, or Enwezor's Documenta XI from 2002. While I'm not familiar enough with these specific exhibitions/events to comment on the curators' own thoughts, I will say that Thea does a good job of pushing the curators to really consider their approaches to projects and their outcomes. In the interview with Russian curator Joseph Backstein, Thea calls him out for trivializing if not romanticizing the Soviet era, actually saying to him in response to his comments "This is bogus." That's fun to read in an interview, having a person actually respond to an answer as opposed to following a script.

Unlike "A Brief History of Curating", which featured interviews with curators by Hans Ulrich Obrist, "On Curating" as LOADS of photographs. If not of the exhibitions being discussed then of artworks by artists mentioned in the interview. This helps tremendously, particularly if the reader, like myself, is not "in the know" with these projects.

I found this idea put forth by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev interesting: "Hans Ulrich Obrist employs a Boetti strategy, providing simple rules to produce a kind of chaos, and another order arises. This is creative curating: taking over the creative side too much, the curator may seem to become the artist and the artworks may seem to be illustrations of his or her idea, but in reality, the curator is playing a game, creating a decoy which may seem protagonistic but is actually a device, a magic trick to keep the interface between the world at large and art in a state of positive misunderstanding." I love that idea, of an exhibition as a decoy.

I was surprised for some reason by how much I enjoyed the interview with Gioni, he was more straightforward and candid than I expected. Here's a great quote regarding the art world: "It goes in cycles, but without the artist, none of this exists."

That's reassuring to read, don't you think?

[Added 10/26/09, Note: the author is Hans Ulrich Obrist. Not sure why Amazon has Lucy Lippard as an author, although she's interviewed in the book.]

I struggled to finish this book. I blame myself as well as the publication. Here’s where I’m at fault: 

-       I’m not overly familiar with the history of curating and especially not in countries outside of the U.S. [although it should be noted that all but one of the featured curators comes from Europe & the U.S. Walter Zanini is from Sao Paulo]. And this book doesn’t provide much in the way of background for readers not up to speed on pivotal contemporary art exhibitions from the 1950s to 1990s. So basically, I realized from reading this and not knowing probably 50-60% of the names and organizations being tossed around, that I need to pay a LOT more attention to this kind of thing.

-       For some reason I didn’t realize right away that this is a history book. So whereas I thought the curators would be pontificating on the profession in general, Obrist spent a lot of time in the interviews nailing down details and events of the curators’ projects. This is completely appropriate and helpful for future scholars. But because of my lack of previous knowledge this made the reading a bit tough.

Here’s where I blame the book:

-       There are no photos. None. I mean, these are art curators. Why no images of the curators, of exhibition installations, of artists and curators meeting and planning, talking and protesting? These people dedicate their lives to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting a primarily visual form of expression. Not including images of exhibitions or projects is like writing a book about an artist and not including photos of their art.

-       I’ve never really noticed this before in a book but I think the translation of several of the essays made the individual curators speak in a similar “voice” or tone. There’s a sameness in the style of responses in the translated interviews that makes their conversations somewhat indistinguishable. Granted, this was not aided by my lack of background. But it makes the interviews with the native English-speaking curators seem more vibrant and immediate.

-       I was also disturbed by the lack of female artists and curators included in the discussions. And it made me happy that I think things have changed from when the interviewed curators were at the height of their careers.

Ultimately, this is an important book for contributing to the history of contemporary art curation, primarily in Europe and the United States. Here’s my favorite quote, which is from Harald Szeemann:

“Well, the curator has to be flexible. Sometimes he is the servant, sometimes the assistant, sometimes he gives artists ideas of how to present their work; in group shows he’s the coordinator, in thematic shows, the inventor. But the most important thing about curating is to do it with enthusiasm and love—with a little obsessiveness.”

[added 8/31/09] Okay, I'm going to be honest and just say that I could barely finish this book. Which is not meant to be a criticism of the publication as much as an acknowledgement of my intellectual limitations and lack of deep interest in art on the Internet. At least, I think that's what this book was about. The only essay that I could really penentrate was Christiane Paul's "Flexible Context, Democratic Filtering, and Computer-Aided Curating." Paul discusses the changes and opportunties that on-line curating brings, while also providing a brief history of online curating. She concludes, "The online space, in particular, naturally supports distributed filtering and classifying, and therefore a distribution of curatorial control. In networked environments, selecting and filtering can be undertaken by curators, artists, and audiences, as well as processes automated by software." 

I'm interested in the curatorial profession, its past, present, and future challenges. So I think that's why Paul's essay was accessible. But the rest, for me at least, was too dense. Maybe it's something I need to "grow" into as new media becomes more mainstream. 

[Added 7/17/09] This isn't a book about curating per se, but it's an incredibly thorough look at how new technology, especially Web 2.0, is altering the professionalism of several industries (e.g. journalism) while also allowing for people to "gather" electronically and bring about change, from keeping a TV show from being cancelled to instigating a political revolution. I've had several people now recommend the chapter on the amateur-ization on journalism & publishing as it can be an analogy to the future of curators.

With new media tools, anyone can publish (e.g. blogs) and anyone can curate (e.g. Flickr). I'm not sure if Web 2.0 is going to bring about a major change to how museum curators work as much as it will alter the definition of the verb "curate". [I'm actually writing an article about this concept right now]. I still think that society will have a use for professional journalists with knowledge, access, and analytical skills honed through experience, although perhaps not as many as before. But certainly the means of delivering journalism is changing (bye-bye printed newspapers, alas.). Just as I think society still needs expert curators, who have studied, published, and garnered knowledge over the years in order to interpret and present art in a deep and meaningful context, in a manner that few can accomplish. But with new media, people are expanding the term "curate" to include any activities that reflect the selection of items (real or virtual) by someone who is an expert of that field. Thus one curates a blog, a list of recommended readings on Amazon, or maybe a group of photos on Flickr. I used to flinch at this casual usage, but I'm coming around.... 

[added 7/10/09] To be honest, this book was somewhat disappointing. If features heavy hitters in the mainly American art museum world, like Robert Storr of MOMA, Howard Fox of LACMA, new media curatorial star Steve Dietz, and Lowery Stokes Sims of the Studio Museum. But despite the promising title, the chapters are divided into the same categories that museums have always divided their collections, namely, by media and by cultures. Of this approach, even Altshuler in his intro states, "In fact, new forms of cultural production and new ways of thinking about them, as well as changes connected with globalization and ethnic hybridization, call into question two of the book's central divisions." 

The most intriguing essay turned out to be "Breaking Down Categories: Print Rooms, Drawing Departments, and the Museum" by Christophe Cherix, of the Musee d'art et d'histoire, Geneva. Cherix talks not just about his own museum (another problem with the other essays that tend to read a bit too much like lists of accomplishments) but provides intriguing examples of contemporary art that challenges authorship and authenticity, such as Felix Gonzalez-Torres' stacks of free offset posters, or the dichotomy of prints and drawings as documents or props vs. individual creations of artistic expression as in some of Mel Bochner's work.  

The essays by Chrissie Iles and Henriette Huldisch and by Steve Dietz regarding collecting and preserving film, video, and new media art make me overwhelmingly grateful for the Old Masters who created on relatively inert materials like marble, canvas, etc. I can't imagine what will be left of much new media art, particularly computer/Internet art in 2050. 

[added June 2009] Published in 2004, this is the transcript of a 2-week online symposium of curators, museum directors, educators, art historians, and artists. It's surprisingly readable, considering I think it contains long e-mailed postings as content. But Maurice Berger, curator at the Center for Art and Visual Culture, does a great job engendering thoughtful and honest comments. Some topics are all-too-common, e.g. the rise of the corporate model for museums or the struggle between museum educators and curators. And some participants seem to present lists of their own institution's accomplishments rather than jumping in and joining the argument. But many of the responses are very thoughtful and even critical of one another. It's great to hear some of the curators talk about their vision for museums without towing the typical party line. 

[added June 2009] Although I refer to this book often, it both intrigues and frustrates me. Something of a companion to Victoria Newhouse’s impressive tome on architecture, Towards A New Museum (1998), this 304-page book is filled with photographs and illustrations, thorough research, and insightful writing about the effect of physical context on artwork. One particularly enlightening chapter presents a methodical comparison of various installations of paintings by Jackson Pollock in private homes, commercial galleries, and museums. Two critics—one in Art in America and the other in the New Criterion—proclaimed, “no museum professional should be without this book” and that it should “be an obligatory read for all who have anything to do with the placement of art.” However, as a previous reader rightly noted, the majority of the photographs Newhouse employs lack the most important element of context: viewers. And the final section of the book, entitled “Placing Art,” which includes short segments on topics like wall color, scale, and labels, reads more as a brief compendium of exhibition “do’s and don’ts” than the thoughtful analysis in the earlier chapters. Maybe my problem is I just don’t like being told what to do.

[added June 2009] This is a highly readable group of essays about curating. Especially liked Ingrid Schaffner's one about exhibition text. 

[added June 2009] Published by Independent Curators International, this compendium of short essays about the profession offers conflicting advice ["curating is an art form" and "curating is not an art form"] but it's still interesting to read various authors' ideas about what it takes to excel in the field. In her short essay titled "Vade Mecum? I Wonder" Maria Hlavajova wrote, "If Microsoft Word ever recognized the word 'curating' it would make me a little sad." I love that quote. Other notables in selection include Trevor Fairbrother, Thelma Golden, Robert Hobbs, Lucy Lippard, and Marcia Tucker. 

[Added June 2009] Okay, this book is really just a guilty pleasure. Not especially helpful in the realm of curating but it was enlightening to read behind-the-scenes info about Christie's auction house, the Art Basel art fair, ArtForum, the Tate's Turner Prize Process, and a crit-from-hell class at CalArts.