Dr Jon Blackwood’s seminar regarding the changing and evolving place and value that we ascribe to the curator.
“If in 2018 literally anyone can be a curator, what price then curatorship, and what is the role of the curator in presenting contemporary cultural production?”
We have been assigned 3 tasks to complete before attending the seminar. I will answer these here and then extend this post after the seminar.
The Tasks
- Choose an exhibition that you have seen since the beginning of the Masters course and write about it in detail, considering it from a curatorial point of view. How successful / unsuccessful was the curation and what are the reasons for your answer? Come prepared to discuss / explain.
- What different “types” of curator can you think of? What role has the curator played historically and what are the changes in our time? Jot down some thoughts.
- Imagine you have been given a space and a budget to curate EITHER a solo exhibition, OR a group show of no more than four contemporary artists. Whom would you choose, what would your theme be and how would you curate it? Jot down some thoughts and come prepared to discuss your exhibition concept.
1.
Allan Grieve at PVA Worm
The most recent exhibition I have attended and looked at in proper detail was the Allen Grieve // Workshop Dunfermline Takeover at the PVA WORM Space. The show consisted of a mix of drawings onto paper and some mixed media/collage work thatw as also drawn over. This was accompanied by a video work of a similar style to the drawings. Featuring a photographed male figure vogueing for the camera in a wig, drawings moved over and around the central figure in a constant scrolling feed of imagery.
“As an artist, Alan’s main medium is drawing. He trained in Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee, completing both an undergraduate and a Masters degree, and has since exhibited his work all over Scotland; notably, as part of DCA’s Nine Trades exhibition in Dundee in 2010; a four year project of drawings based on local stories and legends, The Real Bothy at Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery in 2014; and as part of the Archipelago exhibition of contemporary art at Summerhall, Edinburgh in 2017.” PVA Website
As part of the show Grieve who is also a fully qualified and experienced hairdresser had a chair and was offering cheap walk in haircuts at £8.00 for male or female customers.
As for the curation of the show, it felt hurried or improvised. The images could be read in any order and there was no apparent connection or dialogue created between how the work was placed within the space. The work was a collection of drawings over the last 10 years, with “some new work focusing on offbeat connections between Aberdeen and Dunfermline“.
The long period of time that the work was produced in showed, as there was again no consistent theme beyond the artists style and sense of humor holding these drawings together. It felt as though it were a collection of images that the artist enjoyed, and that had not been part of previous shows, so could be exhibited as new work.
The show also featured new work presumably made specifically for the show. Being cynical, one could suggest that this work exploring the connection between Aberdeen and the artists home town was only made because of the show. A weak pass at giving the work some site specific context.
The show could of been in any space as it did not make use of its location. Knowing that previous bodies of work explored and celebrated local stories and folklore and where exhibited within contextual locations. It is then a shame that the artist was not pushed to explore the context provided to the show by Aberdeen, beyond a few new drawings.
The mix of methods used to hang the work from what appeared to be simply Blue Tacking small drawings to the wall to larger paper pieces being mounted to MDF. This unframed approach at first glance looks, amateurish, but given the style of the drawings, is authentic to the style of the work.
Curatorially, overall, I felt the show was a little lazy. The connections between Aberdeen and Dunfermline where not built upon and the images from my reading could be in any order. Having assisted in the making and hanging of numerous shows, it felt like most of the decisions were made on the day.
2.
A taxonomy of Curators walk into a bar.
The first orders a round of drinks but half the glasses are empty and the tray is swimming in unfinished cocktails.
The second orders a platter for the table that everyone can share. No-one gets quite what they wanted (or enough). The bread and olive oil are placed in different corners of the bar for some reason, so everyone is having to walk back and forth. But the second curator has written a thorough report detailing how everyone was fed.
The third has a private room that has a very beautiful crystal goblet on the table with the finest champagne, but your not allowed to drink it or lean over the velvet rope.
The forth curator is helping people make their own drinks by facilitating them with their own beverage choices. All whilst trying not to tell them that craft beer is morally better than Carlsberg. The forth curator is also keenly aware that they have a meeting with the second curator in an hour. So is trying to not get stuck and spend too much time in conversations about park benches.
The fifth curator is the landlord, they have the bar, but not the time (or the money) to have the establishment running in quite the way they would like. The pink paint on the wall is still visible from the last time the first curator came in and they really need to talk to the second curator about a regular platter night. That being said, the soft edges and thick white emulsion on the walls is a warm familiar space for all the curators, so they keep coming back.
3.
Ultimate artist dinner party show! (working title)
For this show I would invite Hamish Fulton to respond with text works to the installation of paintings by Alexander Nasmyth.
Large scale vinyl banner prints of Nasmyth’s paintings would be produced and installed within the landscapes romantised in his work. Once installed, Fulton would be invited to walk through the landscape and consider Nasmyth’s portrayal of said landscape, how it had changed over time and whether the Nasmyth representation was “accurate”.
From this exercise, text pieces would be produced at a similar scale and installed within the landscape, in proximity but not within view of the Nasmyth prints.
This would create a show without walls, with diptychs appearing all over rural Scotland. It would require the viewer to not only mirror the journeys made by both artists to view the work, but also give the viewer the space to contemplate the work and the land it responds to and represents.