Exploring Curation Strategies and Creating Content
In a conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, the co-director of the Serpentine Galleries in 2016, he shared a favourite definition of curating from the English writer J. G. Ballard. He said Ballard told him this in their last conversation, just a few months before he died: “A curator is a junction-maker.” He explained that on a few occasions, he, as a novelist, curated exhibitions and made junctions. The question is, obviously, what are these junctions? Learning from this, I understand I will take my objects, install them in a space, and consider how each piece relates to the others and the overarching theme. How do they “speak” to each other? Creating junctions will facilitate an experience where viewers can move through different ideas and emotions. (online article read in the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/mar/23/hans-ulrich-obrist-art-curator )
Ideas to work with and discuss with the tutor:
Theme: My exhibition could be titled “Kalahari Hotel 2024: Nesting Spaces and Heterotopias.”
Entry Junction: Visitors can encounter an introductory text explaining the concept of heterotopias and how it relates to my work. This can be projected or printed at the entrance. As my work continued and I started to plan the exhibition I decided to make a booklet and share it with visitors.
Spatial Junctions: Arrange the wire nests in clusters that reflect community, isolation, and interconnectedness. I could use varied heights and distances to create dynamic sightlines. I am thinking of tools such as lighting, pedestals, or framing to enhance this junction. How I hang, place, or display the work will affect its interaction with the surrounding works and the space itself.
Narrative Junctions: Create a pathway that leads visitors through developing my ideas, from the initial inspiration by sociable weaver nests to the theoretical influences and final artistic expressions. A talk by Prof Andrew and videos of these nests in nature (with sound) could be used. I can use textual elements, such as wall texts or labels, to provide context and connect different works. These can be quotes, my own reflections, or relevant excerpts from my research on heterotopias.
Interactive Junctions: I could consider creating more than one space outside for reflection where visitors can sit and contemplate my curated connections. In these areas, I can include materials similar to my nests to leave for the visitors to make or leave something – thus contributing to the exhibition’s evolving nature.
My learning from the recent participation in a collaborative exhibition gave me more insight into involving visitors in the creation process. We set up stations where attendees could create winged artwork, which was then displayed on the armature. The project continued after the exhibition closed when we invited the local primary school to bring classes through the exhibition at arranged times. One could focus on a more instructional process for the next exhibitions. I created a QR code for the work to incorporate all the visual materials and ideas surrounding the installation with the RASA NGO. It is linked to a blog post, and I am learning to use video and photo material. There are also plans to have the same exhibition with RASA later in the year in Cape Town.
The wing installation will also be used in my exhibition, but my interpretation will be different. I consider displaying artworks from my European student group that have influenced my practice, creating a dialogue between their works and mine.
Susan Sontag, in ‘On Style’ in Against Interpretation, discussed encountering a work of art as an experience, not a statement or answer to a question, and that art is something; it is not only about something.
Further reading
More reading led me to an e-book titled Ten Fundamental Questions of Curating by Jens Hoffmann, where I found an excellent critique of modes of thinking by asking ten great questions to 10 international curators. (I need to read in more depth in the next few weeks)
The questions are:
- What is a Curator? ( Jessica Morgan)
- What is the Public? (Juan A. Gaitán)
- What is Art? (Chus Martínez)
- What about Collecting? (Sofia Hernández Chong Cuy)
- What is an Exhibition (Elena Filipovic)
- Why Mediate Art? (Maria Lind)
- What to do with the Contemporary? (João Ribas)
- What about Responsibility? (Peter Eleey)
- What is the Process? (Adriano Pedrosa)
- How about Pleasure? (Dieter Roelstraete)
Questions I have:
Without art and artists, there cannot be an art exhibition. However, I need to consider relationships around the method, the form, the discourse/ thinking, and the contents within the space. My exhibition is only temporary, and how I frame my work within this is also temporary. In my mind, it becomes an unstable place where one engages, experiences, and reflects. I want to explore this more with my tutor.
I take complete responsibility for what I make, but what is the curator’s responsibility and freedom when the work is in their hands? Is the curator a ‘co-producer’ of the artwork the artist made?
Communicating about the work – not overly didactic or overly simplified: thinking about promotion, press release, and during the exhibition to ‘educate’ the audience/viewer or to talk about ‘their experience’ of what they see.