There is a website (found with the basic search words “how to curate”) which tells one how to curate an art show in seven easy steps. This may strike some as a little simplistic, given art curators are generally required to have doctorates, training, experience and other such things. However, should one have an emergency curating occasion, this website may serve its purpose.
As visual art evolves, curators are having more demands put on them: installation art cannot just be planted in the corner of the room; performance art requires space, lighting and that ever-elusive ambiance. Even those artists who create 2-dimensional paintings prefer being given more than just “wall space”.
Art, though, is not just visual. There are olfactory artists, tactile artists, auditory artists and those who explore the sense of taste. Are these arts not to be curated? Should one (following Step # 6) organize some inexpensive-yet-tasteful wine and cheese for those attending An Evening of Palate Art?
Curating is a new art. Not long ago, fine art was two-dimensional, rendered in oil paints, and suspended on walls of great, drafty old museums and mansions. Art, a term having finally broadened to include all things of sensory interest, now demands more than just sturdy hooks and large walls.
The curator must turn the trees into the forest, and the forest must be as appealing as the individual trees, while allowing the trees to retain their individual allure.
In the last couple of decades, curators have been leaving their traditional spaces and flowing into industrial areas, private homes, garages, forests; any space which has the aura required by the art pieces is good.
Once a space is selected, the curator must arrange the pieces to their best advantage. This is the Art of Curating. While the show’s theme might dictate some order, the pieces themselves dictate the final arrangement. The curator’s personal tastes and abilities will be challenged here, and themselves displayed to the world. Some curators might allow the artists to arrange their own pieces, and that, in itself, is the curator showing his own artistic preferences.
Advertising the show is also an art. Flyers and programs are collectibles, and a memorable flyer will lend itself to the curator’s next project. Images, fonts, wording: the impact of these must certainly be considered. The catalogue, and accompanying histories, will be advertising for both the curator and the artists.
The opening, with careful invitations and wisely-chosen refreshments, is a celebration of the works of art. Openings are loved by some patrons, and despised by others. A good opening will set the tone for the patrons, and incline (or disincline) them to purchase a piece.
A curator should not be viewed as a “middle man”, although the curator’s work directly affects the artist and the buyer. It is difficult for an artist to sell an uncurated work; thus, curators are a necessary part of the artistic process. Their creations can be appreciated in the same manner as any other art.
Perhaps the disconcerting website which reduces curating to seven steps is, itself, a work of art. Minimalism? Creation of conflict? Public accessibility? One may give a subtle nod to the curator’s personal artistic preferences and head off in search of something a little more to one’s taste.
