Thinking contemporary curating

253 Pages·2013·14.301 MB·English

by  Terry Smith

ICI PERSPECTIVES IN CURATING NO. 1
Thinking
Contemporary
Curating
Terry Smith
INDEPENDENT CURATORS INTERNATIONAL
Thinking Contemporary Curating is the first in a new publication series developed by
Independent Curators International (ICI) entitled Perspectives in Curating which offers
timely reflections by curators, artists, critics, and art historians on emergent debates in
curatorial practice around the world.
This publication was made possible, in part, by grants from the Elizabeth Firestone
Graham Foundation and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation. Additional support for
this publication was received from the ICI International Forum Patrons Melva
Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy, Haro and Bilge Cumbusyan, Carol and Arthur
Goldberg, Belinda Kielland, Patricia and Charles Selden, Younghee Kim-Wait, Georgia
Welles, and Elizabeth Erdreich White.
Published by Independent Curators International, New York.
Independent Curators International
401 Broadway, Suite 1620
New York, NY 10013
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www.curatorsintl.org
Copyright ©2012 Independent Curators International (ICI), New York. All rights
reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or otherwise transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the
publisher.
Texts copyright ©2012 the author.
Series Editor
Kate Fowle
Copyeditor
Audrey Walen
Designer
Scott Ponik
Publication Coordinator
Chelsea Haines
Researcher
Jessica Gogan
eISBN 978-0-916365-87-5
Table of
Contents
ICI Perspectives in Curating
Kate Fowle
Acknowledgments
The Lure
1. What is Contemporary Curatorial Thought?
2. Shifting the Exhibitionary Complex
3. Artists as Curators/Curators as Artists
4. Curating Contemporaneity
5. Curatorial Practice Now
The Infrastructural
Illustration Credits
Author Biography
ICI
Perspectives
in Curating
Kate Fowle
The starting point for Thinking Contemporary Curating occurred on
March 11, 2011—day one of The Now Museum conference that
Independent Curators International (ICI) produced in collaboration with
The Graduate Center, CUNY and the New Museum in New York.
Involving artists, art historians, curators, and museum directors in a series
of panel discussions and conversations, the three-day event looked at the
diversification of the notion of the “museum of contemporary art,”
providing intergenerational perspectives on recent developments across
Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
While topics in the spotlight included the reconsideration of historical
narratives (or their abandonment), recent alternative models to traditional
museum infrastructures, and burgeoning international collaborations, the
subtext to the whole event was a revelation of the various positions the
speakers held in relation to the contemporary museum as a place and/or
concept. What became evident was a slightly uneasy breakdown in
communication among speakers (and at times audience members)—in
particular between curators and art historians—who, even when talking
about the same thing, frequently could not tell that this was the case,
causing a slippage in establishing what was at stake, let alone any
cooperative game plan in moving ideas forward.
The breakdown became palpable on the afternoon of the first day, during
the discussion “Contemporanizing History/Historicizing the
Contemporary,” led by Claire Bishop (Associate Professor, PhD Program
in Art History, The Graduate Center, CUNY) with panelists Okwui
Enwezor (Director, Haus der Kunst), Annie Fletcher (Curator, Van
Abbemuseum), Massimiliano Gioni (Associate Director and Director of
Exhibitions, New Museum), and Terry Smith. It continued as a fascinating
glitch in the proceedings of the many sessions that followed.
A month or so later, over dinner, I brought up this slippage to Terry Smith,
asking him what he thought lay at the root of it. I suggested perhaps it was
a difference in style and use of language. Art historians are trained (and
expected) to propose a unique observation (no matter how minutely
different) on any given topic, outline the facts and problems that pertain to
its specificities, and present their solutions before providing a conclusion
that proves they are right. Curators, on the other hand, take a far more
speculative (and often meandering) approach, outlining the issues at stake
from personal experience, describing a project and various artists’ practices
that test ways to understand key points, then making an open-ended
proposition for consideration with the conclusion that research is ongoing.
Smith did not totally agree with my reasoning, but concurred that there
was something in the “glitch,” particularly as a result of the increasingly
multifarious production modes of curators. While it is widely accepted that
the role has been professionalized and given independence from
bureaucratic mandates, with a “coming of age” occurring in the 1990s, we
are still fumbling to pinpoint what really constitutes contemporary
curating. If the curatorial position remained fixed, as it was historically—
behind the scenes, pragmatic, and ostensibly service oriented—this
belaboring of specifics and terminologies would be unnecessary, but as the
curatorial imperative gains momentum around the world, its form is
mutating and becoming untethered from its modern precedent.
Furthermore, the notion of a language around curating is still nascent, or
at best tentative, as evidenced by the anecdotal fallback position so often
used by practitioners. After much back and forth and a few glitches in our
own conversation, by the end of the night we were left with yet another
question, though one that was pertinent to getting to the bottom of the
first: What is distinctive about contemporary curatorial thought?
And so Thinking Contemporary Curating became the first book-length text
to lay the groundwork for articulating specificities in this still-forming
field. As described in his acknowledgments, Smith has actively (and I
would add generously and thoroughly) engaged with numerous
exhibitions, conversations, and projects around the world—often as they
are occurring—and gained an overview of both emerging and established
curator’s ideas, practices, and outcomes, with one pivotal closed-door
group discussion between professionals triggering the form of the text in
front of us now. Divided into five chapters that loosely define five facets or
operatives, Smith considers what contemporaneity means for curating, and
examines the curator’s position in relation to the artist, the public, the
exhibition, the institution, and the expanded infrastructure that constitutes
the art world within global social, political, and cultural frameworks.
Recognizing the drive for contemporary curatorial practices to destabilize
common assumptions or positions, as well as rethink geographic and
political representations, Smith also weaves case studies of key exhibitions,
debates, and propositions in recent history that have set precedents from
which we can build.
This is the first book in a series entitled Perspectives in Curating that will be
published by Independent Curators International (ICI) to provide
sustained analysis on topics that are pressing for curators now. This
initiative follows a number of others that ICI has established since 2010 to
support curatorial research and development in various forms: The
Curator’s Perspective—a talks series in New York that periodically travels
across the U.S.—provides a platform for curators from around the world to
present their observations on social and political situations that are
impacting their practice, the projects they understand to be important to
curatorial developments, and the artists who are making them think;
DISPATCH—a quarterly online journal with each issue guest-produced by
a different curator around a topic of their choice that relates to where they
live and work—provides a flexible format for sharing information and
ideas-in-progress; and The Curatorial Intensive—a short-term program for
working professionals from around the world held twice annually in New
York and in collaboration with institutional partners internationally—
enables the exchange of knowledge and expertise while developing a new
project with all-too-rare peer feedback. While each of these programs,
together with conference and fellowship initiatives, offers curators the
opportunity to test ideas, think out loud, and develop an international
network, the imperative for the book series is to take research to a deeper