Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Curating - A Practical Guide + Links

A Practical Guide to Curating

Online course by Node Center with Maeve Mulrennan
Application deadline: Saturday, September 19, 2015
Duration: Sep 22 – oct 13, 2015
This course provides the basic tools to curate in the art field from start to finish. It examines the ideas and practicalities of curation, looking at what curating is and its potential, followed by practical sessions on developing a proposal and managing a project. The course includes two exercises, one research based and the other project management based.
Following the course, participants will learn practical tools to research and develop a curatorial proposal, project management skills and managing their curatorial practice. This course is an ideal primer for those who want to get started making exhibitions.
Course image courtesy of José Luis de la Parra

PROGRAM

Week 1:  Role of the curator
  • What are your expectations of curating?
  • What do curators do? Types of curators, difference between project manager, artists as curator, commercial gallerist, museum. Different models of curating
  • Different approaches to curating: what can be done, how your work fits into existing gallery / project space models
  • Managing & Positioning your curatorial practice
  • Curatorial case studies
  • Assignment: research a curatorial case study on a solo exhibition by a contemporary curator.

Week 2: Building your proposal with artists
  • Developing your proposal / what is your project?
  • Researching artists (studio visits, database, techniques)
  • Communicating your ideas to artists & developing curatorial ideas with artists
  • Writing the proposal
  • Inviting artists to participate & defining a working model
  • Assignment: Draft a proposal for a curatorial project.

Week 3: Working with a space
  • Working in a space; how to get a space, how to propose your project to a gallery
  • Insurance, Health & Safety, Transport & Art handling
  • Installing: guidelines for working with digital media, digital equipment
  • Examples of different layouts of 2D works
  • Devising an installation timetable; working with a technician / art handler & artists
  • Basic contracts: for artists, gallery spaces & technicians
  • The take down; the resources you need, invoices you need to send, other things you need to do to ‘tidy up’.

Week 4: Communicating your project
  • The audience: who are they, what do they expect, how to communicate with them on a marketing level and an artistic level.
  • What to do with your audience once you have them – public programming and engagement
  • Marketing & promotion; mediating your project to the public & the art community
  • The Vernissage: practical guidelines on what to do & why
  • Engaging a writer / critic
  • The importance of documenting your project & different examples



In the United States, a curator’s job is multifaceted, and dependent on their particular institution and its mission. However, in recent years the role of a curator has evolved alongside the changing role of museums. As museums in the United States have become increasingly more digitized, curators find themselves constructing narratives in both the material and digital worlds. Historian Elaine Gurian has called for museums in which “visitors could comfortably search for answers to their own questions regardless of the importance placed on such questions by others.”[1] This would change the role of curator from teacher to “facilitator and assistor.”[2] In this sense the role of curator in the United States is precarious as digital and interactive exhibits often allow the public to become their own curator, and choose their own information.
More recently, advances in new technologies have led to a further widening of the role of curator. This has been focused in major art institutions internationally and has become an object of academic study and research.
In contemporary art, the title curator is given to a person who selects and often interprets works of art. In addition to selecting works, the curator often is responsible for writing labels, catalog essays, and other supporting content for the exhibition. Such curators may be permanent staff members, be "guest curators" from an affiliated organization or university, or be "freelance curators" working on a consultant basis. The late twentieth century saw an explosion of artists organizing exhibitions. The artist-curator has a long tradition of influence. Notable among these was Sir Joshua Reynolds, founder of the Royal Academy, London.
In some American organizations, the term curator is also used to designate the head of any given division of a cultural organization. This has led to the proliferation of titles such as "Curator of Education" and "Curator of Exhibitions". The term "literary curator" has been used to describe persons who work in the field of poetry, such as former 92nd Street Y poetry director Karl Kirchwey.[3] This trend has increasingly been mirrored in the United Kingdom in such institutions as Ikon, Birmingham, UK and Baltic, Gateshead, UK.
In Australia and New Zealand, the term is also applied to a person who prepares a sports ground for use (especially a cricket ground)[4] This job is equivalent to that of groundsman in some other cricketing nations.
In France, the term curator is translated as conservateur. There are two kinds of curators, Heritage curators (conservateurs du patrimoine) with five specialities (archeology, archives, museums, historical monuments, natural science museums), and Librarian curators (conservateurs des bibliothèques). These curators are in public service, selected by competitive exam, the use of the title curator by private workers remains unofficial.

Education and training[edit]

Curators generally hold a higher academic degree in their subject, typically a Doctor of Philosophy or a master's degree in subjects such as history, history of art, archaeology,anthropology, or classics.[5][6][7] Curators are also expected to have contributed to their academic field, for example, by delivering public talks, publishing articles or presenting at specialist academic conferences.[5] It is important that curators have knowledge of the current collecting market for their area of expertise, and are aware of current ethical practices and laws that may impact their organisation's collecting.[8][9]
Recently, the increased complexity of many museums and cultural organisations has prompted the emergence of professional programs in fields such as public history, museum studies, arts management, and curating/curatorial practice.[10] In 1992, the Royal College of Art established an MA course co-funded by the Royal College of Art and the Arts Council of Great Britain, the first in Britain to specialise in curating with a particular focus on contemporary art. The course is now funded by Arts Council England, and in 2001 the course title was amended to Curating Contemporary Art to more accurately reflect the content and primary focus of the programme.[11]Similarly, a number of contemporary art institutions launched curatorial study courses as an alternative to traditional academic programs. Established in 1987, the École du Magasin is a curatorial training program based at the art center Le MAGASIN in Grenoble, France. Similarly, the Whitney Museum of American Art, through its Independent study program, hosts a curatorial program as one of its three study areas, and de Appel arts centre hosts its curatorial programme since 1994. Other institutions that run programs in curating include Norwich University of the Arts; The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK, Kingston University; Goldsmiths College, University of London; Birkbeck, University of London; Chelsea College of Art and Design;University of the Arts London; California College of the Arts; University of Southern California;Bard College; The School of Visual Arts; the École du Louvre; University of Rennes 2—Upper Brittany; Ontario College of Art and Design and The University of Melbourne. (See →External links for further information on courses.)

Technology and society[edit]

In the same way that a museum curator may acquire objects of relevance or an art curator may select or interpret a work of art, the injection of technology and impact of social media into every aspect of our society has seen the emergence of technology curators; someone who is able to disentangle the science and logic of a particular technology and apply it to real world situations and society, whether for social change or commercial advantage. The first UK Wired Conference had a test lab, where an independent curator selected technology that showcased radical technology advancements and their impact on society, such as the ability to design and "print"real world objects using 3D printers (such as a fully working violin) or the ability to model and represent accurate interactive medical and molecular models in Stereoscopic 3D.[12]MOVE,[13][14] a Confestival started in 2010, celebrated the disruption of the perception of what a tech conference should be, using a radically more interactive format that drew on a variety of influences outside of the traditional world of technology, including religion, micro-banking for developing countries and interactive art installations/workshops such as the Future Cube[15] and a giant interactive video projection.[16]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. Jump up^ Clough, Wayne (2013). Best of Both Worlds: Museums, Libraries and Achieves in the Digital Age (PDF). The Smithsonian Institution. p. 30.
  2. Jump up^ Clough, Wayne (2013). Best of Both Worlds: Museums Libraries and Archives in a Digital World (PDF). The Smithsonian Institution. p. 30.
  3. Jump up^ Alix Friedman (June 13, 2000). "POETRY CENTER DIRECTOR KARL KIRCHWEY LEAVES 92nd STREET Y". 92nd Street Y. Retrieved 2010-10-15. The 92nd Street Y announces the departure of Karl Kirchwey, longtime director of the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center. Mr. Kirchwey will become Director of Creative Writing and Senior Lecturer in the Arts at Bryn Mawr College starting next fall. The Poetry Center is a program of the 92nd Street Y Tisch Center for the Arts, the Y's arts presenting division.
  4. Jump up^ "The Cordon - Cricket Blogs - ESPN Cricinfo". Cricinfo.
  5. ^ Jump up to:a b Carly Chynoweth, How do I become a museum curator? 22 December 2006, Times Online
  6. Jump up^ Valarie Kinkade, Day in the life: curator. American Alliance of Museums
  7. Jump up^ Stephanie A. Harper, How to become a museum curator. 6 July 2009, Edubook
  8. Jump up^ A code of ethics for curators. 2009, American Alliance of Museums Curators Committee
  9. Jump up^ Combatting Illicit Trade: Due diligence guidelines for museums, libraries and archives on collecting and borrowing cultural material. October 2005, Department for Culture, Media and Sport
  10. Jump up^ Niru Ratnam, Hang it all. 9 March 2003, The Observer
  11. Jump up^ Curating contemporary art. Royal College of Art
  12. Jump up^ http://www.wiredevent.co.uk/wired/agenda
  13. Jump up^ "MLOVE". mlove.com.
  14. Jump up^ "MLOVE Confestival Disrupts the Perception of What a Tech Conference Should Be: Inspiring, Innovative and Thought Provoking". PRWeb. July 8, 2010.
  15. Jump up^ "Inside a Future Cube at MLOVE". YouTube. Retrieved Jun 27, 2010.
  16. Jump up^ "Projektil MLOVE Lighting Show". YouTube. Retrieved Jun 27, 2010.

Further reading[edit]



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