Journal | Amassing Collections and Other Interests

The conversation was already lively to begin with but our excitement brewed over when Ashraf revealed that he had, among his friends, systematic collectors of comic books, toys and a myriad of other objects. Why do individuals collect objects and how have they given order to their collections? How can we make sense of their collections and what do their collections say about them? We pondered too – how do these private collections compare with exhibitionary institutions? Speaking to private collectors and viewing their treasure troves would help us answer some of these questions and prompt even more issues regarding collecting and collections to surface. We brainstormed on possible places to visit together, including the storage spaces of Karang Gunis, bomohs, Chinese medicine dispensaries and the homes of private collectors (but not dealers, who would be more commercially-minded). The word ‘collector’ is often associated with adults who are sufficiently well-to-do to maintain such a hobby. There is even a stereotype we heard that collectors must be rich bachelors! Yet, Zaccheus reminded us that children/teenagers can be collectors as well – on weekdays, primary and secondary school students (usually boys) can be spotted at Bishan MRT station exchanging ‘magic’ cards. How do these unacknowledged young curators make sense of their collections?

In addition, we shared about our research interests which could be further explored during the internship. For me, postcards and photographs featuring humans from colonial Malaya offer insights into the colonial gaze and relationships between anthropology and colonialism. Posters promoting tourism in colonial Malaya can be visually interesting, as well as telling of the essentialised, apparently alluring traits used to ‘sell’ this location to consumers. These are blurred photographs that I took of some colonial-period, discoloured tourism posters on a noticeboard outside Tanjong Pagar Railway Station in July’ 2011 (the last week when the station was still operational):

Working with the community is important for Zaccheus, who suggested that we make films about changing landscapes in Singapore and invite residents familiar with these changes to the film screenings to share their experiences. With such interaction, the line between curators and their public would be blurred. Perhaps, the categories of curator and public can also be challenged should we invite residents to select personal objects related to the investigated sites for display and provide short write-ups framing these items. Theoretical grounding for our suggestions was broached when Kamiliah introduced the notion of ‘autoethnography’. Self-reflexivity, she pointed out, is a central concern in the discipline of anthropology as well as in curatorship (as highlighted in several of our assigned texts). Curators could provide write-ups about themselves that would help to impress on their audience the crafted and subjective nature of exhibitions. We need to reflect on and be upfront about the question that Heman first posted to artists: what are our positions as curators?

Lee Min (on behalf of the NUS Museum group)

Journal | Internship at SAM - Session 1 | Contentions and Constraints: What is the role of a Curator?

By Riya de los Reyes

Readings:

Patrick Flores, Past Periphery: Curation in Southeast Asia

Robert Storr, Show and Tell

The first session was casual, candid and informal even though Siuli told us to lay our "burning questions" down on the table from the get-go. The session was mainly about understanding how SAM functions as a government-funded institution, how it negotiates its role as a regional player in contemporary art and how it positions itself as a museum for the public. We got a first-hand account of what a curator at a contemporary art museum does and the duties that the job entails - research, outreach, organization, residency, etc.

What I gathered from the readings and the discussion last Tuesday is that curatorship is "an activity rather than the position, status, or convention [...] identified with the aura of the museum" [Past Periphery, p.10). At the same time, it is also problematic that curating has become a ‘buzzword’, with people throwing the word about and claiming themselves to be curators without properly defining what curating actually means. And this is understandable, since Flores admits that curatorship is a contentious term, on top of being a dexterous practice that – according to Robert Storr – involves self-discipline, selection, respect, representation and ‘art diplomacy’.

·         Understanding Curatorial Practice in Southeast Asia

In Past Periphery: Curation in Southeast Asia, Flores outlines how the curating of contemporary art has evolved in Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand and Indonesia. The article also delineates “the shift from the modern to the contemporary” in Southeast Asia, such that curators consequently “serve[d] as conduits of artworks and careers, facilitating exchange between the art institutions, the artists and the public.”

I initially found the article to be rather dense (art history-ish) but upon close-reading, I noted that Flores tended to first put forward generic assumptions most people probably have concerning what curating is about and then proceeds to expound on ‘curatorship’ situated in the Southeast Asian context. He is basically trying to clarify these assumptions based on his knowledge of how curatorship of contemporary art has evolved in the region – to which he concludes that:

…the motivations of curators and the impulse of their practice:

1. extension of creative activity and theoretical/discursive reflection;

2. art education and communication to the public on contemporary art;

3. institutional power; and

4. professional development. (see p. 19)

·         What is contemporary art? Why curate contemporary art?

The curation of contemporary art functions as a means to bridge the generational conflict that arises “with the shift from the modern to the contemporary”. Flores notes Apinan Poshyananda’s observation of the “dynamism” shared by the contemporary and culture:“‘culture’ whose root defined as developing force...Different generations hold different definitions of ‘contemporary culture’. I am saying that being extreme is like perceiving culture from the perspective of a seventy-year-old versus seventeen-year-old individuals. Although coming from different circles, there must be some similarities when the two meet. [...] As a matter of fact, they should socialize and mix since they do live in the same period and society.”

The contemporary means “being in the same period of time” in the same way one might call peers within one’s age bracket as his/her ‘contemporaries’. This definition reflects continuity/change, particularly because what was considered contemporary years ago “was pretty much different from today”. The contemporary, therefore, is a critique of the modern... but very quickly and quite ironically can become self-conscious/self-critical the moment (and this is inevitable) a “new contemporary” replaces the incumbent. It is characterized by a shifting fluidity that exposes the dynamism – but also the fickleness – of the ‘here and now’.

But why bridge this generational conflict? Flores highlights “the link between the curation of contemporary art and the politics of heritage, democracy and globalization”. The contemporary discourse is inevitably intertwined with “issues of modernity and identity, which had been ratified quite strenously by nation-building projects in Southeast Asia from the sixties through the eighties.” This remains pertinent, with many Southeast Asian nations still uncertain – if not, in contention or in constant negotiation – of what ‘nationhood’, ‘heritage’ and ‘identity’ really means.

To explain contemporary art, Flores quotes Jim Supangkat:

...a very basic principle of contemporary art: to bring into awareness that the paradigm of world art in a modernist point of view, that we have been familiar with us so far, was based on a limited reality.

·         Curatorial Roles: Selector and ‘Exhibition-maker’

Flores and Storr similarly defined the curator as a selector, with the former distinguishing the curator from merely being ‘a keeper of things’ (also see Wikipedia entry about Curator) and the latter describing the curator as an‘exhibition-maker’. During our trip to the NUS Museum two weeks ago, Mustafa related his encounter with a woman who wrote a letter to the newspaper about a document featured in the exhibit (I can’t remember what the document was exactly but it’s something to do with the British returning to Singapore after the war). She became the keeper, the ‘guardian’ of that document. The curator –in this case, Mustafa – was not a ‘keeper’, but rather the ‘selector’ who consciously decided to include the document in the Camping and Tramping... exhibit.

Flores cites the art historian, John Clark, regarding the role of the curator: “selector; thinker; mediator of thought; cohort provider; talent scout; theatrical agent; journalist; market maker; cultural provocateur, prototype designer, entrepreneur”. Siuli, for instance, informed us of her role in choosing upcoming artists through the President's Young Talents (PYT) platform, which was apparently the brainchild of Ahmad from NUS Museum. Curators judge artworks, as well as artists – their techniques/craftmanship, the way they communicate their artwork and also how they prove their passion for their work. The curator chooses to place value on certain artworks, but also determines the value of the artist – effectively, promoting “a particular style of thought, through the dissemination of knowledge”. Curators therefore “validate the art in ciculation” (i.e., influence the ‘zeitgeist’ in contemporary art), and decide what qualifies as valuable artworks and who personifies a dedicated/deserving artist.

In his article, Storr likens the curator to an editor (which, of course, struck me immediately since I work in a publishing house). The curator as an ‘exhibition-maker’ is “the first, most critical reviewer in the way that a good editor is the first, most critical reader”. Storr emphasized two important 'values' of the curator/selector/exhibition-maker: Self-Discipline and Art Diplomacy. The curator has to negotiate the interests of the institution and the artists, so he/she has to make the call with regards to, say, the feasibility of the exhibition, and also to 'not give in to pressures' should artistic merit be in opposition with institutional interests. Quoting Siuli (though not in so many words), "As a curator, and particularly when judging/interpreting art or negotiating the institution's or artist's demands, you need to find/have found your 'core'/your own voice."

·         Curatorial Responsibilities: Representation and Respect

As such, I would like to bring up the points that I found most important and definitely relevant to 'finding one's own voice' as a curator - i.e. Representation and Respect.

i. Towards the artists and their artwork

Within the Southeast Asian context, Flores stresses that - as representatives of the artists - the curator "intervenes in making the voices of the artists heard, of speaking on their behalf in the global art world's main language, which is English, or serving as informant of foreign curators who roam the world for prospective talent."

Storr, on the other hand, believes that - as representatives of the artists - the curator is tasked to explain the artistic work by "revealing itself" (ie. 'showing', as opposed to 'telling') in and through the exhibition. Selecting and ascribing value to their work are not the only ways through which a curator gives an artist respect. He/She must be able to give "friendly skepticism" and be able to refuse (and "backed by clearly articulated reasons") the artist's suggestions, for instance, if they would be unfeasible/detrimental to the 'success' of the exhibition. Being critical, provided done with a generative/productive effect, is an expression of 'care'/cure/compassion to spot shortcomings and provoke discourse on how something might be improved.

ii. Towards the public

For a curator working in a public institution, he/she is supposed to represent the interests of the public and therefore required to treat the public with what Storr termed “democratic respect”. The exhibit catalogue, for instance, should neither contain ‘jargons’ nor should it bear the tone of ‘talking down’ to the reader but at the same time refrain from oversimplifying difficult issues.

...it is plain both as a practical matter and as a matter of principle that the ultimate decisions are made by the viewer. The job of the exhibition-maker is to do all that can be done so that those decisions will be well-informed, rooted in perception and, in a positive sense, inconclusive.

“Inconclusive” here means that the exhibition has to remain ‘open-ended’ as a space for discovery. The curator should not explain away or dictate the message/meaning of the exhibition, but rather craft the exhibit such that viewer thinks of it “as the beginning of a renewable acquaintance with someone or something that will take a long time to know well and whom one will never know completely.” (p. 27, Show and Tell)

By extension, Flores suggests that the contemporary art museum should be seen “in terms of either a ‘lure’ or an ‘activator’. Lure because it guarantees visibility (tourism, media, investment) for the locality in which it is situated and activator because it stimulates a new urban system”. He also highlights the tendencies of Southeast Asian contemporary art curators to ensure a ‘democratic’ representation of the region’s artwork and artistic community, so as to veer away from Supangkat’s assessment that modernity was based on a “limited reality”.

Conclusion/Comments

Although curatorship is a contentious term ("to curate is not the exclusive privilege of curators"), its role can be defined. It is important to anticipate what the viewer expects from the exhibit - to know how best to represent artworks and artists in an exhibition and how much the artwork 'reveals itself' to its viewer, and I guess also consider the institution's 'target audience' (in SAM's case, the public). The curator must balance the artistic expressions with the public's potential responses to them.

This also leads to understanding the different institutional intent influencing the character and nature of exhibitions, as well as how exhibitions engage its viewer. SAM apparently prefers to 'seduce' the viewer ("to lay the string that marks a trail in and out" - see Show and Tell, p. 25) rather than overwhelming them with shocking/'difficult' art that would confuse or turn off the viewer.

Over dinner, I talked about my love for fabrics (my mother used to run a dress-making business when I was younger). I initially disliked Indonesian batik (I preferred Malaysian batik). However, I developed an interest in it after my recent trip to a museum in Surakarta where I saw different types of Batik (e.g. batik Cina, different batik patterns denoting status, places, etc.) I lamented, "But I feel like there are only so many ways one can exhibit textiles..."

Siuli then informed me about Samantha Tio's recent exhibit: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/arts/handpainted-batik-makes-its-mark-on-fine-art-photography/501198. Admittedly, I have mainly seen exhibitions done by museums and therefore would like to explore and be exposed to how other art galleries or curating platforms (aside from museums) display different types of exhibits -- "to seek other perspectives and to find/maintain my own voice" as an aspiring curator.

Journal I Internship @ SAM

Our first internship session was mainly a conversation about the workings of SAM and the issues public institutions face in negotiating the various pressures from other government bodies. It was certainly an insightful dialogue on the role and responsibilities public museums have to both its audience and the ethos of contemporary art. One memorable takeaway for me was that curators of such institutions will have to be flexible in navigating through the various channels and parties that exert some form of power over the institution, but always remain firm in their personal and professional principles- "the core". Some food for thought!

Some thoughts about the readings given:

In a nutshell, Patrick Flores's article attempts to characterise and situate curation in Southeast Asia, while Robert Storr's piece focuses on instructing the curator of art on the dos and don'ts of exhibition making.

One illuminating point brought out by Flores is that the curator of today has to be firmly plugged into the contemporary. Now this begs the question, what is the contemporary? It is something which I find some difficulty in defining perhaps because its parameters are constantly changing, its meaning and interpretation constantly in flux. Flores describes the contemporary system as being created as it is practiced:

...the state of contemporary art is rather fluid, and given the uneven and asymmetrical modes by which modernity had taken root in these art worlds, certain practices and roles are practically makeshift, improvised and run on idiosyncratic rationality; the rules in the field are rather pliant, continuously modified by the practice of curators whose very practice creates a system, which had not existed before their sorties into this arena.

I think this brings some insight to the curator's position in the cultural sphere. We've discussed about the power the curator has in validating art through selecting and articulating. As a result, museums, alternative spaces and independent galleries etc create an ecosystem that generates and regenerates the art world as we see it, and is therefore part of the production of contemporary culture. It reveals to me, then, that the curator doesn't only need to be plugged into the contemporary, but s/he is at the forefront of creating aesthetic standards through interrogating conditions of the contemporary man:

Curation as an inventive mediation that produces exhibitions, events, careers, and values and the curator as an agent who actively selects and represents these within the social world of art becomes a compass that guides us as we navigate the vast realms of what is only vaguely invoked as the contemporary.

In other words, I think one can say that the curator creates the contemporary while being part of it. As a conduit of culture, the curator identifies and presents social notions, and also creates recombinant ways of seeing art and the world.

For Storr, he sharply states that the curator/exhibitioner is not an artist, but is a mediator, an advisor, a channel and a translator of ideas all at once. He strongly stresses the responsibility and obligation the curator has to the artist, the institution and the public. I think Storr refers to the curator largely as the middleman who is required to ensure that exhibitions do what they should with everyone's needs being met.

I think Storr's point that "the most important contract of all exists between the exhibition-maker and the public" is rather important, especially when it involves public institutions. It reminds me of what Flores said in his lecture that the curator is also very much a "patient" to his/her audience, and that the art and the intentions behind its presentation loses value if not rightly communicated. While there is necessity to ensure that shows remain open-ended, the curator ought to bear in mind how it will be received. As put by Storr:

...it is plain both as a practical matter and as a matter of principle that the ultimate decisions are made by the viewer. The job of the exhibition-maker is to do all that can be done so that those decisions will be well informed, rooted in perception and, in a positive sense, inconclusive.

The curator thus has to be sensitive to the tensions that underlie the meaning of their shows, making sure that the audiences remain enthralled and also have the space to conceive their own responses. I believe that is where the challenge for the curator lies.



Stef

Journal I Day 1 Internship with SAM

Reading Material - "PAST PERIPHERY: CURATION IN SEA", Patrick D. Flores

Some thoughts I have in mind wrt this reading that we failed to discuss due to our overflowing dialogue.

1) It is not helpful to divide the 'independent' and 'institutional' curators. Patrick mentioned that curators that move in and out of both respective contexts carve a peculiar space within which they practice curation and break through the membranes of the art world. However in our context, there isnt much opportunities for curators to move in and out of the 'independent' and 'institutions'. It is a said achievement for one to progress from the former to the latter. But I am curious to know what incentives are present for him/her to move the opposite direction?

The exchange of ideas in such a movement combines both of them into a whole sphere of curatorial positions that is independent of institutional politics, notions of authority. This progression has the potential to allow art to manifest itself into a purer and saturated form - one that is true to its form and free from political restrains.


2) The 4 curator tendencies are someone similar to artistic tendencies - Past exotic artscape, renewal of tradition, advocacy, and search for the new. What I like about such similarities is the curatorial community of artists as curators, and curators as artists. Such tendencies serve as a base starting point for a whole progression of ideas and inspiration to be augmented through a conceptual discourse and eventually evolving into a new work(artist) and a new angle or position(curator).


3) The future of curation may move beyond found and intangible spaces. In some situations, curators are actually just asked to write curatorial introductions for a particular collection of ideas or narratives. Their roles will supersede exhibitionary practices while increasingly becoming more sought after in approaching unique angles into ways of seeing things. This is due to the fact that many other current roles of curation has the potential to be 'substituted', but we cant possibly substitute the curators ideas.


Daryl

common programme: Curatorial Roundtable 02

Date: 18 Aug 2012
Time: 2pm
Venue: Unit 15 Lorong 24A Geylang

To RSVP: Please email museum@nus.edu.sg or call 6516 8817 / 8428
Limited to only 30 seats.


::: THE CURATORIAL ROUNDTABLE SERIES

Presented in conjunction with Curating Lab 2012, the Curatorial Roundtable series is a public talk series that gathers together curatorial and industry pratitioners across different spectrums, to discuss their latest exhibitions and projects. Although presented primarily for the participants of Curating Lab 2012, this series is an opportunity to bridge the gap between the curator and the audience, providing opportunities for interaction and stimulating discussions on curatorial practices and process.

::: PANELISTS

David Henkel is Curator for Southeast Asia at the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM). His focus is primarily on the Malay World and Tribal communities, as well as the early-modern period of Southeast Asian history. His research interests include weapons and warfare, religion and ritual, woodcarving, metalwork and textiles. His most recent exhibition was Land of the Morning: The Philippines and its People. 

Lilian Chee is a writer, architectural theorist and designer. She was trained at the Bartlett, University College London where she obtained her doctorate, and at the National University of Singapore where she is currently Assistant Professor. She is interested in the potentials and problematics of domesticity as it impacts the individual, the neighborhood, and ultimately, the city. Her interest has been explored across various visual media including architecture, art and film. She is presently working on a research film looking at domesticity within Singapore's public housing context.

Erika Tan is an artist and curator whose work has evolved from an interest in anthropology and the moving image. Her work is often informed by specific cultural, geographical or physical contexts; exploring different media to create situations that excite, provoke, question, confront and invite comments from an audience. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including Thermocline of Art (ZKM, Germany 2007), The Singapore Biennale (2006), Around The World in Eighty Days (South London Gallery / ICA 2007), EAST International  (Norwich Gallery 2000), Cities on the Move (The Hayward Gallery, London), and Incommunicado (Hayward Touring exhibition). 

Journal | Of Authors and Agency in the Museum/Exhibition

By Kenneth Tay

Perhaps it's because I come with the prejudices of being a student of literature, but I think that even as we continue to speak of curatorship as a kind of authorship (I think first mentioned by Ahmad) we need to examine what is meant by the figure of the "author", as well as what are some of its implications for the 'reading' of any (museum) exhibition.

For the convenience of this piece, I'd like to maintain that a curator is or can be an artist insofar as the curated exhibition can be thought of an artwork - a bricolage amalgamated from a selected series of art-works and objects. It is in this sense that I speak of "curator", "artist" and "author" all in one same breath.

Almost predictably, I refer to Barthes' seminal essay "The Death of the Author" (1967) as a starting point for a problematization of the "author" figure. In Barthes' case,

[t]he author is a modern figure, a product of our society insofar as, emerging from the Middle Ages with English empiricism, French rationalism and the personal faith of the Reformation, it discovered the prestige of the individual (emphasis mine)

To that, Barthes speaks of the "Author" as a particular and traditional author that has been normalized perhaps due to certain theological inflections (i.e. the "Author" as the god-creator of his text/work). That is to say that the meaning of the art-work or text resides alone in the 'intention' of its creator and that any reading or interpretation is merely a retrieval and recovery of this meaning: "To give the text an Author is to impose a limit on the text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing" (Barthes). In short, the Author's intention is the only possible line of reading - the alpha and omega of our hermeneutics.

Against the figure of the "Author", I think it prudent for us to remember that the curator should not be seen as a kind of god-creator of his/her exhibition. On this note, I am also certain that in no way was Ahmad trying to suggest this either when he mentioned that curatorship is a form of authorship - well, not this Author-ship anyway.

Even as we continue to read the curator's statement(s) or the captions for the selected works in a particular exhibition, we are not bound to the 'intention' of the curator in our reading/engagement with the exhibition-as-artwork. In other words, the curator-author does not or should not tyrannize our interpretation of his/her exhibition into a single line of thought favored and preselected by him/her.

That being the case, we would be foolish to think of ourselves as free autonomous agents in the space of the museum or exhibition either. The curator does in fact manipulate and limit the possible pathways/vectors of our interpretation through factors as varied as the dramaturgy of the exhibition and the choice of object/works presented. In our role as readers, viewers and recipients of the curator's exhibition-as-artwork, we are never completely free. In short, our hermeneutic horizon has been foreclosed or circumscribed as such by the conscientious selection and deliberation on the part of the curator-author. The curator may not be a coercive "Author" but s/he is not politically innocent either in his/her mobilization of our thoughts. As reading subjects in the museum or exhibition, we are also subjected to the antics of the curator-author (eg. system of representation). In that sense, the idea that we are coming into the space of the museum or the exhibition as an autonomous subject able to hold the 'world' in an anthology of objects and images in front of us is a fantasy we need to be aware of, and that of our 'agency' as reader/viewer be problematized.We can no longer speak of agency purely in the simple formulation of whether we readers or viewers possess it or not, but that this 'agency' always operate in degrees and in shades of grey.

Returning to Barthes' frequently-cited statement "the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author", we ought to remain vigilant to the fact that this birth is not one necessarily free of symbolic chains and that the death of the Author in the museum gives way to the curator-author who, though no longer overdetermines, nonetheless continues to yield a considerable (determining) force on our hearts and heads.

Journal I some arrows are better than others

Undoubtedly, one of the distinctive characteristics about Arrow Factory is its sense of humor.

Whether that's a conscious decision by the curators and/or the artists themselves, it is hard not to attribute it to the nature of the space itself. A small and supposedly unassuming space no more than 15 sqm situated along a small hutong alley in the Beijing city center.

Amongst its many project over the last 5 years, such as the video installation (It’s Not About the Neighbors) by Wang Gongxin that creates a simulacrum of Arrow Factory's neighbor or the kinetic installation (38 Jianchang Hutong) by Zhang Peili, these projects exhibit a particular sense of mischief.

Perhaps, it stems from the fact that it doesn't need to take itself too seriously. As compared to the big institutions, museums and galleries that exist because they have to exist, Arrow Factory seems to exist, simply because it wants to.