essay | untitled

By Ng Shi Wen

Books, e-books, websites, artists books - a collection of images and text spread over linear and non-linear pages are valid curatorial forms. They also play on the differences (and similarities) between document(ation) and material(ization). Compare this to the exhibitionary. (6 Modules)

This statement questions the nature of text -- can they be mediums through which curating can take place? Does the validity of text as a curatorial medium blur the distinction between the document and material (which are objects) and documentation and materialization (which are acts)?

July 2012

What are ‘curatorial forms’? What is curating?

The etymology of the word ‘curate’ conveys care – the care of minors and lunatics, and the care of souls

Yeung Yang, pp.12 in Fominaya and Lee, 2010

Today a curator is expected, or may choose, to take on multiple tasks like conception, artistic direction, administration, project management, programming, publicity, dealership and writing.

Michael Lee, pp. 6 in Fominaya and Lee, 2010

The rise, over the last forty years or so, of exhibition spaces that have no permanent collection has led to a shift in the focus of the role of curator towards that of a ‘filterer’ or ‘selector’.

Magnus Renfrew, pp. 141 in Fominaya and Lee, 2010

Curating can be likened to caring for an (art) object. The curator is expected to care for the works in all its aspects. His or her role also is to communicate the significance of the collection to the public, to act as a “filterer” or “selector” in order to construct a coherent and focused narrative, which can best allow the viewer to perceive the work. The curator acts somewhat like the middle person between the artist and the viewer, like the editor of a book.

Texts and images as valid curatorial forms

In writing, one chooses what to include. There is a process of selection and selecting is a curatorial act. How does one translate sight/experience into text? The process of expressing the visual as text is already an added layer of  interpretation when one considers the fact that texts seek to represent something. In re-presenting, the text maker is implicated, being the agent who decides on how to re-present. Image making is a similar process, for in making an image there is a decision to be made on what to include and exclude. In the case of books, this is followed by another selection process – what images to include and where to place them in a body of text. If the practice of curating is one that is largely synonymous with acting as a “filterer” or “selector”, text and images can be seen as valid curatorial forms.

What is the difference between the document and the material? When are the distinctions blurred?

When considering this perhaps it is best to begin with examples. Many pieces of art, especially sculpture or installation art, are photographed (think Heman Chong’s Stacks). Here the art is documented in the form of photography, but the photographs of the piece will not be sold as art. However, another interesting example that was mentioned during the curating lab intensive was that of 2000 yuan bills being slot into books borrowed from a public library. These were then photographed, and the photographs transacted as art. In this case, the only way others could encounter this art was through its documentation. Here, the document has become the material, the art object.

Texts as exhibition

The difference between an exhibition and a display can be crudely described as such – a display is merely the showing off of a collection of objects. They are arranged and manipulated for visual consumption, but may not necessarily be ordered in a thoughtful way. An exhibition, on the other hand, would imply that the “display” has been through some sort of curatorial intervention.

Texts as exhibitions, then, is not an invalid claim. Both are curated (having gone through similar acts of selection and re-representation), as this essay argues above, and seek to communicate an idea or concept to the viewer.

December 2012

I started thinking and talking about curating in July 2012 with a way of  thinking that had been shaped by years of being immersed in my field of study (the social sciences). It is the way of understanding the world and its phenomena by seeking definitive answers. I imagined curating to be similar to a research essay, expressed not in the medium of text but in visuals, both having a clear and focused narrative (coming from the curator) through an unabashed neglect of discordant voices that did not help the narrative. Viewers (of both text and exhibition) would come away having learnt something, or understood the curator’s point – all viewers would derive the same understanding, and from there they were free to agree or disagree with it.

Reviewing my response to module 4 now, what has become strikingly obvious are the gaps in my understanding of curating. 

To curate inevitably also deals with space. The exhibitionary can allow the space to speak, whereas books, or press space, is fixed space that the viewers cannot transcend. Whereas the viewer is an active agent who is free to move in an exhibition space, text is necessarily linear. Pages are ordered, and order has agency.

To curate, if it means to care for the objects in all its aspects, also requires allowing for the objects to speak for themselves, and to provoke thought, as the objects do, and not to provide answers, to tell. In such a framework, the act of translating sight into text seems almost unfair to the art objects, for in doing so, the act of text making is already interfering with objectivity.

This is not to say that texts, or more specifically, books, cannot be valid forms of curating. However the ways textual space and the medium of text itself are interpreted by the viewer is essentially different from the exhibitionary. It may privilege information, or order, or interpretation. What I can take away from this difference in the ways I have negotiated Module 4 pre and post experience is that there is no simple answer to what curating is, and following that, what ‘curatorial forms’ are. Curating is a practice that can take many forms and focus on various aspects of “caring” within the ecology of art today. It is a malleable practice that can be shaped by the commercial, by history, by art and artists, by institutions, the state, etc.


References:

Fominaya and Lee, 2010. Who Cares? 16 Essays On Curating in Asia. Para/Site Art Space with Studio Bibliotheque, Hong Kong.

Journal | reflections on the first session at SAM

Why curate? What is the role of the curator?

The role of a curator, or, more essentially, who a curator is, can only be discussed upon an understanding of what it means to curate. Curating has been described as the acts of

1.       ‘caring’ for the art works in all its aspects,

2.       Communicating the significance of a collection to the public

3.       Filtering or selecting, much like the editor of a book. 

(This is of course a non-exhaustive list which could go on to include logistics of exhibition making, talent scouting, writing, art dealership, etc.)

However that being said, Flores, in his article, reminds us that the concept of curating itself can be culturally specific (in Thailand, for instance, the ‘curator is pantarak, which literally means keeper of things’, and ‘some Thai artists had initially thought the curator to be a broker, an assignment akin to marketing careers and commodities.’).

What it means to curate, and the role of the curator in the messy context of the contemporary is no longer clearly defined. Dealing with the commercial is now seemingly part and parcel of curating, especially if the curator is an independent one, and is thus more vulnerable in a ‘survivalist’ setting. Another factor that shapes the role of the curator is the institution within which he/she works in – exhibitions always have to serve to perform the institutional mandate, something that is perhaps most apparent in state museums. 

So, why curate? For me curating allows for a focused narrative to come through, whether this is a narrative that is personal for the curator, or echoes the institution attached to the exhibition, etc. What is important here, is for the curator to be self-reflexive about his/her practice. 

I have failed to cite decently in this short reflection piece based on our first internship session at SAM last week, but I draw references here to Patrick Flores, Past Periphery: Curation in Southeast Asia and

Robert Storr, Show And Tell. Another book I have found very helpful in understanding curating is titled Who Cares? 16 Essays on Curating in Asia (http://booksactually.com/index/mathpaperpress/d/whocares.html)

Journal | 30th of July

By Shi Wen

In lecture today it became interesting to see the commonalities between the practice of anthropology and curating. Both seek to re-present. While curating creates 'art' objects, anthropology creates the 'other' -- both the art object and the other are to be observed and/or experienced. We spoke about the blurring of lines between the roles of curator and artist. Similarly in anthropology there seems to be a fading distinction between the anthropologist and subject -- the anthropologist is encouraged, with requisites such as being 'in the field', living with them and like them and the acquisition of the language spoken by the people studied etc. 

And...  I don’t mean to harp on this endlessly but about the Khmer Rouge photograph exhibition, I definitely think that the exhibition has its virtues, some of which we discussed in our session (such as being provocative enough to generate thought and discourse about the event). 

In tutorial I mentioned that my discomfort lay in MOMA’s decision to see these khmer rouge photographs as art. I think I failed to adequately explain myself, and should clarify here. I mentioned several things:

1.     intention -- of the photographer, whether it was intended as art or not.

2.    giving the photographs commercial value by cataloguing it

3.     the creation of art objects and seeing the photographs for aesthetic value

My issue with the placement of these photographs lies not in the recognition of them as art objects. I honestly am not so opinionated about that subject -- art as a category can be diffused and any object with an ascribed meaning can be construed as art, perhaps. I wouldn’t be upset if some MOMA curators decided to sit in a room with a list of collections of things and check them off one by one, deciding if they were “ART” or “NOT ART”. My issue with this whole thing is the statement the museum is making in exhibiting these photographs as art, and that I think the museum has a responsibility (any institution/person (?) that has access to the public has a responsibility) to be socially responsible, and to me, watering the photos down to aesthetic objects, removed from its context of horror, judged for its artistic qualities which are at best unintentional by-products of the act of documentation, especially in a socio-historical context when the memories of the khmer rouge may still be fresh and part of life history for a large community of people – is irresponsible.