The role of curator is a complex one involving everything from sourcing, sharing, contemplating, evaluating, dreaming, connecting, wooing, provoking, revealing, designing, collaborating, discovering, unearthing, introducing, gathering and researching among many other things.
The word stems from the Latin ‘curare’ to care for and so we begin to see that the curator cares for the work, the creator of the work, the people who view the work, the gallery or space, albeit real or virtual, within which people are exposed to the work, the relationship of the work to other work, the history and ancestry of the work and of its creator, in part perhaps an aspect of the future of the work and its creator, the community within which the work is shown or revealed, the way in which the work is shown, the relationship of curator with the creator / artist and the sharing of the works curated.
Considered and intellectual choices reflect the curator’s handle on the climate and preparedness of their community for new ideas, new visions, new ways of imagining and of storytelling through image, movement, film, sculpture, hybrid approaches that break the rules while informing the presence of discipline in the making of the work.
Perhaps a curator is also a go-between, acting as a communicator with the artist and observer simultaneously.
Many curators have degrees in art history and even a Masters in Curating. It is now a recognised aspiration with google offering tips and salary hints for such a role in life.
A curator brings people together to consider, to collaborate, to surprise, to create, to bring something unseen into the realm of the seen or to manifest in new and exciting ways or in ways proven over time and history but through a fresh perspective.
The curator opens doors both for the creator and the observer inviting them to co-create in ways that change them inexorably. Perhaps a curator is an agent for change. The word ‘agent’ carries various meanings such as steward, negotiator, advocate, emissary, operator and a commissioner. Richard Fortey says: ‘A life accumulates a collection: of people. work and perplexities. We are all our own curators.’
Where do we see examples of curators in our daily lives? We see them as the Anna Wintours of the world who decide what we see in Vogue and who is represented. We see it in the Rupert Murdochs who influence what news we see through media channels. We see it in the supermarket shelves where the large chain organisations place items in particular locations within the store to capture us or seduce us. We see it in all social media, which is constantly curating what we see according to a history of what we like to ‘consume’. Every google search is curated. Walk into any clothing store or fashion house and the treasures before us are curated within an inch of our lives. Artistic Directors of dance companies, theatre companies, orchestras programme offerings for experiential consideration sometimes packaging works under a curatorially enticing umbrella. Film companies. Producers and increasingly, streaming giants, curate works in their stables of offerings.
Troubling then is the question that any curator might ask themselves. Am I making choices from any presence of a personal bias? If so, are these choices not coloured and limited in some way? What are the powerful implications of such a bias? Are choices made on the basis of commercial outcomes in some cases? How do we measure an ‘outcome’?
Perhaps the best curators are also artists or those who deeply understand the inability to understand the deepest workings of any creative person. Or maybe not.
‘I see a curator as a catalyst, generator and motivator - a sparring partner, accompanying the artist while they build a show, and a bridge builder, creating a bridge to the public’ is how curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist sees it.
In some way we are always consciously or subconsciously surrendering ourselves to suggestion or exposure to something that asks us to recalibrate or reconsider ourselves in some way whether it be through coercion to be different or ‘better’ than we are because what we are may be judged as not enough.
The artists in all their forms or ways of imagining have always been the ones who question, who provoke, the shape shifters, the ones who peek beneath our surface to examine the watery depths held there. The ones who help us feel differently. The ones who make us momentarily more brave. The ones who ask ‘what if?’ The ones who dare to swerve from our usual directions.
Art, as defined in the dictionary, can mean know-how, virtuosity, mastery. Etymologically the word ‘art’ from the old French carries the meaning ‘skill as a result of learning and practice’. Does this not then call up the question that art may be a pathway for both the practitioner and the observer to develop self know-how, virtuosity of being, mastery of understanding of the self and to develop the skill of being a self through learning and practice?
Art then, in all its forms and expressions would seem to hold a mighty potential to serve as a reminder (note to self) of that most precious ability to ‘be’ in a particular moment and to experience something beyond the ordinary, disguised and in costume, within an ordinary moment.
The curator then can be an agent to remind us to look, to see, to be with, to get closer to, to recognise, to evaluate, to consider, to switch, to shift and to evolve into something more than we entered into the experience with.
In a way we are lead by the hand of the artist and of the curator into an exhibition of work to experience ourselves differently if we are open to it. At this point we must let go of the hand and search for ourselves. This, in itself, is an act of surrender and of rebellion. Of course we have preferences for sorts of sensorial things including sound, colour, sensation, taste, texture and so on. Art invites us to put our preferences aside and ‘be with’ what we have entered into by showing up at a gallery, a performance, a concert, a happening, a book, a festival, a film or anything that someone ‘else’ has brought together. We may not love or like that experience or even feel a ‘resonance’ with it, but can we be with it, free of quick judgment, and see what it holds?
The vast and awesome display of creative difference is also a catalyst for realising we are all made of the same stuff. Perhaps our preferences act to keep us safe in some way. Perhaps peeking outside the confines of our structured self allows for a perspective that is wondrously uncomfortable or chaotic. Of course we do not put ourselves in physical harm’s way when viewing art but we may at times put ourselves in the way of radical and explosive creativity asking us to consider for just a moment something ‘other’ than our comfort zone.
This may all seem grand or even pompous but the question here is brilliantly simple.
Can we walk into a curated experience and be totally available and open as if we have never, ever stood before a painting, a photograph, a sculpture, a drawing, a tapestry, a dance, a poet or a group of musicians? Can we?
Free of limitation. Free of prejudicial judgment. Free of past conditioning. Free of fear.
Perhaps the curator is, after all, simply a door person who opens the door for us to enter.
What we find there is up to the artist.
After all we chose to be here. Unless we are a child being pulled along. Being curated.
Where you then go is up to you. It always has been. If we dare to.
Disclaimer: These are just ideas and not to be confused with absolute truths.
Simon Dow