The
first session of the Curatorial Roundtable talk series was held at the
Visitors’ Briefing Room in the National Library Building on 7 August
(Thursday), from 6.30pm to 9pm. Moderated
by Kenneth Tay, assistant curator at
the NUS Museum, Dr
Charles Merewether (NTU School of Art, Design and Media), Charmaine Toh (National Gallery
Singapore, Jennifer Teo and Woon Tien Wei (Post-Museum) came together to explore
the topic of ‘Lines of Control: Curatorial Con-texts’.
Despite
the rise of the independent and transnational curator, the role of the curator
is inextricably bound up in site - be it the museum, the international
biennale, or the small non-profit space. To that end, how do we continue to
speak about authorship in curatorial practice given that the latter continues
to be influenced, changed and developed alongside the contexts curators find
themselves in? As the inaugural session of the Curatorial Roundtable talk
series, this session explored these questions while addressing
also the perhaps problematic over-investment in the figure of the independent
and transnational curator.
Speakers
Dr Charles Merewether was born in Edinburgh. He received
his PhD after studying literature, philosophy and art history. He subsequently
taught European modernism at the University of Sydney before leaving to
live in Colombia and then Mexico. He taught at Universidad Iberoeramericana,
then at the Universidad Autonoma in Barcelona. In 1991 he moved to New York and
received a research fellowship from Yale University and worked as the Inaugural
Curator for the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Monterrey, Mexico (MARCO)
between 1991-1994. Subsequently he was a Curator at the Research Institute at the
Getty Center in Los Angeles for (1994-2003) and gave courses at the University
of Southern California (USC). He was Artistic Director of the Sydney Biennale
between 2004-2006. Between 2007-8, he was Deputy Director of the Cultural
District, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi and from 2010-2013, Merewether was
Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore. He is currently
Visiting Professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Charmaine Toh is a curator at the National Gallery,
Singapore, currently researching photography and Singaporean artists working in
the 1980s and 90s. She was the Programme Director of Objectifs: Centre of
Photography and Film from 2010 to 2014 where she played a pivotal role in
revitalising the gallery programme and initiated plans for documentation and
research of local art practice. She is also the founder and Director of The Art
Incubator, an independent organisation that facilitates the production and
presentation of new work via residencies and exhibitions. Charmaine was the
co-curator of the 2012 Marina Bay Light Festival and co-curator of the 2013
Singapore Biennale.
Jennifer Teo and Woon Tien Wei have worked together for more than 10 years, in The
Artists Village, p-10 and Post-Museum, an independent cultural and social space
which they set up in 2007.
Curatorial Roundtable 01 | in photos
Curatorial Roundtable 01 | video
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