[curatorial.net] FW: beginning on line discussion

[Judit Bodor]

Hi Paul, hi everyone,

I really enjoy the discussion. I though I would also send something,
specially after Geoff's letter, with which I agree.  Recently I have been to
Milan in an international curatorial course that made me feel very
uncomfortable of who I was in the world of 'curators'. The group of people
who were the participants we mostly people practicing curating in very
diverse ways, while the organisers and the visiting curator were
well-established curators of exhibitions/biennials/instiutions and were very
defensive about "who we curators are and how we supposed to work"...

I think there is a difference when we look at being a curator it as a
profession/job within an institution or when we look at curating as a
creative, and many times collaborative process (by professionals or
amateurs) taking very different forms of dissemination.  I also think that
roles are separated between making and framing/managing/contextualising the
making, but not necessarily separated between artists and curators. Curating
can and - I think - should be critical/creative act and not only an
applied/facilitating role to creation. Curating of course has different
function from making art (even when the artist and the curator is the same
person) but similarly creative process.
 
I also wanted to say that I really like Mark Hutchinson and Dave Beech¹s
correspondence in your book when they talk about 'anti-curation'
(transforming the curator by infecting the curator with that which is other
to the curator) and 'critically self-aware curation' (that enters to a
mutual and dialogical relationship with artists and therefore has doubts and
conflicts). I like their thoughts cause it lets people thinking about
curating  in ways that 'curator as a profession/job' does not.  I would like
to see more Œanti-curating¹ and critically Œself-aware curating¹, even
though, as Hutchinson also say: a critically self aware curation (not sure
of itself) as a practice might not even be curation at all...


All the best,

Judit


Judit Bodor

Lecturer: Art
Dartington College of Arts
Totnes
TQ9 6EJ
UK

T: 01803 861 672
E: j.bodor at dartington.ac.uk
W:www.dartington.ac.uk




On 23/10/07 13:42, "geoff cox" <gcox at plymouth.ac.uk> wrote:

> Dear Paul et al
> I thought I would try to respond to some of the issues briefly. I too
> am concerned that the terms are a little ill-defined.
> One could begin to define what curating refers to descriptively and
> etymologically - taking care of objects and souls for instance - but
> also how the term has begun to be used quite differently
> historically. Clearly in 1987 (the date your research takes as a
> point of departure), the term was used differently than it is now
> where almost all arts practice or cultural production (even everyday
> activities) can be loosely described as involving curatorial
> concerns. So on the one hand, blogging or tagging can be seen as
> curatorial endeavour (where everyone is a curator of sorts - the cult
> of the amateur, if you like) and on the other, curating has become
> deeply institutionalised and professionalised - perhaps as a
> defensive reaction against its popularisation. The power relations
> around participation and expertise seem to play off eachother here -
> along vertical and horizontal axes - and with respect to
> individualised and collective production.
> Post-duchamp, the distinction between artist and curator makes little
> sense either. If the term curator is substituted for commissioner or
> producer then a set of other issues are foregrounded that highlight
> the political economy but also the symbolic capital invested in the
> role.
> I am left wondering whether the term itself makes much sense these
> days. Perhaps its use can only ever be tactical, and needs to respond
> to historical conditions.
> This is a bit rambling but I though I'd send it anyway.
> Geoff
> 
> 
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> --
> geoff cox
> gcox at plymouth.ac.uk
> 
> 
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