Iain Irving : Curatorial Practice

Shadow Curating

2009-12-02T14:27:00.004Z

I am currently involved with a project with Deveron Arts, Huntly as part of their Shadow Curating exercises. I was invited by Claudia Zeiske of Deveron Arts to play the shadow role to the Mozambique artist, Gemuce's Credit Crunch project. I started to connect with Gemuce over the summer by email but it was only since he arrived in Huntly in October that any substantial connections and discussions could be made. The Shadow role is essentially one of questioning the curatorial decisions that Deveron Arts makes with Gemuce's project. In early November I also invited a group of my Masters students at Grays School of Art, Aberdeen to join my team and become a shadow curator as well. This has manifested in the students and myself, setting up an online project space to place ideas, research, archive material of our thoughts and discussions
http://graysshadowcurators.ning.com/
My own discussion with Claudia has developed as an online meeting through Skype which is documented as we go, and so has a already transcribed document of the meeting -
We will be taking part in Gemuce's final presentation of his Kalabash Bank of Ideas in Huntly on 10th December

Free Curating

2009-11-28T21:23:00.001Z

Talent who uses talent - HUO on Start the Week Radio 4

2009-11-11T13:01:00.001Z

Start the week page

Energy yes, quality no

2009-11-08T22:04:00.003Z

Last week I visited the Thomas Hirschhorn exhibition at DCA in Dundee, with the PG student group. After an broken down journey down from Aberdeen we made it to the centre. I was looking forward to seeing this work, as I was well aware of Hirschhorn and his seriousness but energetic installations, but the full force of this satirical and no holds barred presentation was a palpable experience, added to by the enthsiastic and generous sharing of the ideas and narrative to the exhibition by curator Graham Domke.

Exhibition on Seal Island

2009-10-11T17:40:00.001+01:00

Independent Contemporary Art Curating: (Matthew Higgs)

2009-09-19T16:16:00.002+01:00

Abstract

This paper aims to consider and examine the development of the independent curator through the curatorial practice and exhibition making of British born; now New York based Matthew Higgs. Higgs has an interesting trajectory that is improvisational, amateur and intuitive but has not kept him from being influential in scholarly activity and in directing influential public arts organisations. Higgs is currently the director of the New York art space White Columns. He previously was the associate director of the CCAC Wattis Institute at Cal Arts in San Francisco, Formerly a lecturer at Goldsmiths and RCA. He has contributed articles to numerous journals including Artforum and Art Monthly. He also continues to produce his own art and is represented by Murray Guy Gallery in New York and Anthony Wilkinson gallery in London. Since 1993, he has been the publisher of Imprint 93 an ongoing series of artists’ multiples and editions.

In analysing the curatorial practice of Matthew Higgs, it becomes clear that he not only “curates’ to produce gallery exhibitions but he is also participant and player in the UK and worldwide contemporary art infrastructure, as in he’s around and has positions of influence, perspective and expertise. Its difficult to pinpoint specific exhibitions that he’s curated; I remember there was the City Racing (artists run collective London 88-98) retrospective at the Tate Modern, which was a vast display of documentation of the projects that the organisation had produced. but this wasn’t him. He had curated an initial version for the ICA in 1993, where he has been an associate director. The American author and curator, Lucy Lippard was once criticized by someone that curators are in fact artists whose materials are other artists. This may well be the case with Higgs. As a continuing practicing artist, who has a gallery representing his work in the UK and US, and his work is in the Tate collection, what can be drawn from the acts of a curator who is also a showing artist. There are some connections in their creative process in how and what they produce. Other curators who are known make art and exhibit are Demarco, this needs considering in what sort of connection that they are making to the artists and their work when they are curating or organising their projects and exhibitions.

Higgs is interesting as I see his work very much as the artist/curator, he’s also very much been a promoter/champion/buddy/fan of particular artists, such as Jeremy Deller, Martin Creed, mostly connected to the Cabinet Gallery particularly in the 1990’s in Britain. His growing up background from North east England, where there existed a sceptical pragmatism during his youth years in the 1970’s could have something t do with his support of the underdog, the working class, why not? I can help, . His interest in contemporary pop music, which was coming from such places, also enabled him to be part of the cultural activities, which, a youth would find his life existing. It is a familiar scenario, in non-London Britain. The working class entrepreneur, who creates his own version of the world as he sees from afar and helps to produce the version in his own backyard, thus creating a highly experimental and improvised version of the highly invested Metropolis, The don’t want to be just part of the audience. Higgs talks of his interest in music and how he arranged for New Order to play in Chorley, their first gig after Joy Division. Even at art school in Newcastle he started a nightclub in a desire to make something happen, “my involvement with art, and with developing projects with artists, emerges from exactly these same desires” [1]. These activities were happening all round the country at this time and slightly earlier, particularly in music, Tony Wilson and Factory, Alan Horne and Postcard records, Bob Last and Fast product, Dick O’Dell and Y records, much of which would be influenced by Rough Trade in London. Their distribution network, The Cartel, set up within the company would enable a share, “open source” method of getting music out to the masses. It was a time of do it yourself, and we all got the bug and tried in different ways “to make something happen.” Maybe this is imbedded in a generation, which was youthful in the 70’s /80 have and never forgot it. As the desperate Bicycles said on their song Smokescreen, “It was easy and its cheap go and do it”. This influence of the DIY culture formed by post punk and the quick development of technology in the form of photocopiers and early computers enable Higgs and others to pursue activities in which they could be the authors of as opposed to working within a museum or public funded gallery to make something happen. The institutions of the time were mostly publicly funded but had an amateurish and cobbled together authority but being publicly funded. In Scotland mostly central belt spaces such as Third Eye in Glasgow, and New 57 and Traverse in Edinburgh produced venues, which were enthusiastic but ultimately sponsored by the SAC. The independent art collectives of the times were mostly groups of artists who need a space to work in and show their work, so Transmission and Collective started in the early 1980’s as artists deciding to take the problem into their own hands of getting their work seen by the public. In time, these organisations have become the establishment and their early pioneering ultimately becomes the standard and the thing to kick against. Bu these organisations needed people to make the shows and do the business. There was not any curatorial or administration courses, which this work could be learnt, the volunteers learnt by doing the tasks and jobs required to make the events happen. There needed to be a particular awareness and knowingness of what is required and how to do this work. These were not museums, which had trained historical curators, conservators, art movers and wardens. This was different, the art was different it was improvisational, somewhat ad-hoc and needed the space to get things wrong to get things right. Therefore, someone like Higgs saw the potential to work in the artworld in a way that he knew how to make an effect on art and its culture.

He talks of the curator’s role as “that there is no consensus as to the role of the curator, just as there is no single definition of what constitutes art. In struggling toward rationalizing my own practice, the closest I have come is in the possibility and potentiality of working between the audience and the stage”[2]. So, what is between the audience and the stage? Who else occupies this space? Most likely the conductor, the compere, the film director, the dj, the teacher, the surgeon, the poet, the announcer, the cook, the ringmaster, etc.

He also says that, “ From the outset, each project is determined by the specifics of its context. Curating each project remains a largely intuitive act. My job - if it is a job - is to establish an appropriate response to each situation. Consequently, each project is different and demands a distinct rationale”[3]

Maybe the fact that his practice covers a lot of outputs and contexts its more difficult to identify a continuous track record or ‘style” of outputs. This sits well with the idea of the curator as trickster, changing tack, putting down a decoy playing with what it is, and ultimately doing what? He talks of an audience and the need for the output to be public and seen, but ultimately this comes down to showing in established institutions and their consistency with public expectation. The intuitions, which Higgs has and does work with, could be acceptable and on the side of the artist, so that stays anti-establishment, he needs to retain his “punk ethics” as w all do. Therefore, sleeping with the enemy enables culture to be infiltrated and challenged from within. But in time as always this becomes the establishment, and Higgs and his artist friends become accepted and championed by the cultural gatekeepers, i.e. Tate, Serpentine, Saatchi, provincial public galleries etc- they are included, awarded, fayed and supported. With credit these artists and curators are confident and “spunky” enough to play the field and work with those who will benefit them and their “career,” what else would they do? Surely if you can make a living doing the things you want to and know how to use the structure to sustain this why not?

In Scotland, the infrastructure of contemporary art organisations and spaces which includes (government funded, The National Galleries of Scotland, Inverleith House, Civil Service), provincial Art Galleries (city funded, City Arts Centre, GOMA, Aberdeen, Dick, Changing Room etc), Independent public spaces, (SAC/City funded, CCA, Fruitmarket, Stills, Peacock, Pier Arts Centre, An Lantair, An Tobar, etc), new commercial spaces (private with some SAC funding, doggerfisher, Sorcha Dallas, Modern Institute, Mary Mary, Ingleby, etc), artists collectives (generally SAC funded Collective, Transmission, Generator, Limousine Bull) and others creates a field of opportunities for the curator and artist to work with. All these organisations have a rolling programme, which needs to be fed and sustained but the independent curator needs to be as independent as the artists are to work with these organisations. In terms of the organisations becoming the acknowledger and confirmer of the importance and relevance of the projects, which the curator proposes and supports. There is a filtering system occurring, the gatekeepers role. The ideas and potential of the projects need quantified and quality checked, in relation to their own pre determined conditions of activity.

The galleries and museums in Scotland are now every much part of the driving nature of cultural industries. These organisations promote and develop late capitalist structures and evolve (pseudo) management policy and working methods to appear resourceful, active, relevant, Their staff develop new personal qualifications and skills, which now come with the working environment, therefore this management and justifications, have linked these once art institutions with corporate business. Therefore can the avant-garde exist in this environment, can creativity exist in the powerful offices of arts management. Of course, it needs to and the consumption of new art practice into the institutions stokes the fires, which makes the wheels of culture rotate. The institutions know they have this power, but it is very much the institution, which has the power as opposed to the individual in the organisation. However, the individual within the institution knows that this is the case and so can take advantage of this position to make decisions on those to support and those to ignore. The National Galleries of Scotland (Dean Gallery and SNGMA) are the establishment’s keeper and promoter of “relevant and important” contemporary art in Scotland. It has substantial power in creating and making artists work recognised as significant. There is a National Collection, which declares this acknowledgement and public investment. The ability to cherry pick the artists whose work suits the time and moment, and it’s within the organisation that the curators need to establish and argue for their relevance (would be interesting to know how this works, in reality, is there consideration of commercial impact as well as cultural when curating exhibitions in such places). The National Galleries have a buying committee where the curators of the various joined establishments come together to pitch the relevance and requirement of buying certain works for the collection. There is a budget and each curator brings to the table the works to be campaigned for - there are winners and losers – but this is all within the confines of their offices. Cultural gatekeepers indeed.

So getting back to Higgs, and his ‘career’, he has had important jobs, in the establishment, although not in the museum centrality, he has kept to his ethos and worked in organisations which promote the cultural avant garde. His organisation have been intentionally provocative of the mainstream, not confrontational as this gets us nowhere, but to be provocative, challenge with power behind you to experiment with the nature of curating and exhibition making, as he knows that this is what is interesting to the genuine participants of the sector. As Maria Lind states, that what in a museum context could have been understood as provocative, let’s say 20 years ago, would today not be considered provocative in a real sense, because it would be very easily included into the field of discourse. It would maybe be even embraced as an asset, which helps to make the institution more relevant. At the same time, there are practices that 20 years ago would not at all have been understood as provocative – which are super-provocative nowadays. Those are the more quiet and subtle ones, the more dense ones, the more discursive ones”[4]

In Progress

[1] Thomas, Catherine, ed. The Edge of Everything: Reflections on Curatorial Practice. Banff, Alberta: The Banff Centre Press; 2002. P.17

[2] ibid, p17

[3] ibid, p19

[4] Möntmann, N, ed. Art and Its Institutions, Current conflicts, critique and collaborations, London, Black Dog Publishing; 2006

2009-09-13T15:31:00.005+01:00

My work as part of Trust exhibition, Limousine Bull, Drum Castle.

2009-09-13T14:53:00.002+01:00

When it all comes true : a visual conversation

2009-09-03T13:39:00.005+01:00

This curated piece will be part of the Trust exhibition, organised by Limousine Bull, Aberdeen at Drum Castle, nr Banchory, Aberdeenshire from 12th - 21st September 2009

The piece takes the form of a temporary exhibition within the Trust exhibition. The theme of the curation is athenticty and trust in art and culture. The piece consists of a portable wooden stucture remonisciant a free standing kiosque/Rodchenko type reading room/portable white space/noticeboard which will stand in the castle courtyard. The structure is painted timber and plastic sheeting. The panels will display 30 (A4 matt laminated stapled on) images and text of artworks, music, memoirs, anecdotes, news clippings by various artists, writers and musicians. These images and texts intend to create a visual conversation on authenticity. The piece is also improvising what an exhibition is and might be, the role of the curator, the location, the structure, the audience and the participants.

Independent Contemporary Art Curating: (Hans Ulrich Obrist)

2009-09-03T13:36:00.001+01:00

Abstract
This paper aims to consider and examine the curatorial practice of Hans Ulrich Obrist, a Swiss curator who can be identified as modern day trickster, coyote, a middleman, provocateur in the contemporary artworld. His practice and indeed his lifestyle seemed to start out as a freewheeling traveller with no fixed abode to institutional manager and a much feted and powerful figure in contemporary curating worldwide. By analysing his trajectory from his initial encounters and opportunities for curating projects to significant player in the history of curating, an important model for curating can be identified.

"The new type of art institute cannot merely be an art museum as it has been until now, but no museum at all. The new type will be more like a power station, a producer of new energy." Alexander Dorner (1893 - 1957)

The current term of ‘producer’ for the maker of art events and experiences could be employed on Hans Ulrich Obrist, he makes things happen, he has ideas for new forms of production, he collaborates, his productions are successful, ground braking, exciting and are evolving the notion of the art exhibition in many ways. But this term seems too literal, it deals with health and safety, budget, interpretation and audience, it deals with the authorities and communicates with the detractors and the not convinced, so his work, or his art is something else, something more than. Obrist to me has a constant appetite for ideas in curating. He improvises with the context of curating, building up his appetite to do one more version, possibility and experience of curating. The trickster has a constant appetite, although he does not always eat what he cooks as the appetite is continual. If he eats, he will be satisfied and no longer need to look for his next meal. Perhaps the idea of comfort and contentment leads to lack of newness and creativity. Tricksters make themselves hungry by tightening their belt, removing their intestines, vomiting up their last meal so that no meat will satisfy its stomach.

This might be a heavily metaphorical way of illustrating Obrist’s work, but he does seem to continually look for the next opportunity, constantly moving on testing, trying out, making a statement, standing against but for the work he is drawn to, but in a positive manner, not competitive or territorial, but open democratic and inclusive. In June 1995, the CCA, in Glasgow was a venue for the exhibition, Do it! This was curated by Obrist. Nicola White, who was the exhibitions director at the time, had pursued Obrist to secure the exhibition. We met him in Venice at the Biennial of 1995, where we met him in the hotel which dickens and Byron used to hang out in. We met him for coffee in the foyer; Yoko Ono came over and said hi to him. Once the meeting was over he suggested that we just got up and left without paying for the coffee, as the hotel wouldn’t make a fuss over the price of 3 coffees, so we just walked out. This is what he would do; use the foyer as his office. We then tracked him down to an exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London, called Take Me I’m Yours (whether this was named after the old Squeeze “punk” hit I wonder), but I didn’t go in as Nicola was on the mission to secure the show, so just hung about outside and spoke to Cathy de Monchaux, as I didn’t have “the appetite” at that time. Although, we did end up in a small bar in North London, where the artists and hangers on got together, inc Gilbert and George. The elder statesmen of Brit art were being feted and probably enjoying themselves. Demonstrating our interest and determination, but also that we were a gallery in Glasgow, and at the time Obrist saw the activity of Gordon, et all we were the second venue to carry out the Do It exhibition.

Even at this time, early 1990’s Obrist was playing with the possibilities of the exhibition and curating. Do It consisted of a list of selected artists, who composed a manual of instructions to make the work for the exhibition. The artists never needed to get involved with the making of the work. The exhibition included Christian Boltanski, Maria Eichhorn, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Paul-Armand Gette, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Fabrice Hybert, Ilya Kabakov, Mike Kelley, Alison Knowles, Bertrand Lavier, Jean-Jacques Rullier and Rirkrit Tiravanija. The artists did not involve themselves in the making of the work, this was done by the staff of the gallery, although Maria Eichhorn came into the gallery while we were making her work, and told us that this was not what she meant or wanted as her work! We had carried out her instructions to lose a silver ring in the city, but we also photographed it, by Simon Starling and showed the photos, in retrospect I know understand what she meant.). We made the photos, built the structures did the drawings, made the humus and recorded the white noise of the local ghostly projectionist. Mike Kelly’s instructions were for us to find a local venue where a ghost or spirit was thought to be and record the sound of the space. Therefore, we went to the ABC cinema next to the CCA on Sauchiehall Street and asked about possible ghostly movement and there was indeed a projectionist who had committed suicide in the projection booth one Christmas party in the 80’s. The cleaners were sure that they felt a presence and tales of the doors opening the wrong way and a chill in the air, made us think this was our source. Therefore, we were nstructed to construct a padded box, which the microphone sat in, and it was to be connected to a speed variable reel-to-reel tape recorder. The recorder would be recording a t a faster speed that the playback. This we did. The recording was then played back at a slow speed and high volume. The sound was of screeching white noise, but in the cacophony, we believed that there was talking, spooky. It felt like a Kelly work, I had seen things in catalogues like this that he had done with old spirit hunting techniques and images with ectoplasm, so this seemed to fit, but where was the author in this. Instructions in art making were nothing new, Sol Lewitt, etc, but it did cross a boundary in terms of curating and exhibition making. Curating became a process, as opposed to a historical marking of achievment and status in much the way that contemporary art in the late 1960’s did, and in the Szeeman exhibition “ When attitudes become form.” At this earlier time critics began to define curators activities in these changing times as “the Curator became the creator” and “ (Lucy Lippard) is in fact the artist and…her medium is other artists” . So was it new or just the time was right to appropriate a previous model, for exhibition making at the time. It fitted with his globetrotting image, where he mysteriously only had n email address as a contact, no one knew where he stayed. When Obrist turned up at our Do It opening, he had a very quick look in the door of the gallery then asked to use the office phone. He had already moved on and was organising the next project.
Obrist speaks of, when he was eighteen years old had was helping out at the Kunstverin Museum in Geneva, and saw all the artists coming in and making their exhibitions in the tried and well-tested context of the museum and white space. He started to think about where the artists would really like to show their work. So he asked the artists when they cam to the museum. He talks of asking Alighiero e Boetti, as he was bored with the museum, the gallery the art fair, why are we only ever asked to show in these spaces. His vision would be for his art to reach around the world and travel ion aeroplanes to all corners of the earth so that the world could experience it. Therefore, if you can arrange this, Hans I will do it with you. So Obrist did, even though it was just Swiss air, he negotiated to have Boetti’s work on the planes to fly around the world. This shows at an early age that he could ask questions, although not have the answer and make something of it happen and give the concept a reality.
At age 18 Obrist may well have just been highly influenced by the avant-garde art making and its associated curatorial practice, as it was 1986, the year that Jan Hoet curated the seminal non white space gallery exhibition, Chambre d’Amis in Ghent, Dan Cameron’s Art and its Double at the Fundacio caixa de pensions, Barcelona, 1987 Skulptur Projetk, Munster, Szeemann’s 1985 New Aperto at Venice. If the curator had now become an artist whose medium was other artists, everyone involved seemed happy to participate.

Obrist’s career may well be seen as a free spirit and independent but he too, like Szeemann, had an umbilical cord attached to the failsafe art institutions in one way or another. He was the curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris since 1993, as well as curator of museum in progress, Vienna, from 1993-2000. He has curated over 150 exhibitions internationally since 1991, including do it (CCA 1995), Take Me, I’m Yours (Serpentine Gallery March 1995), Cities on the Move (Hayward Sept 1999), Live/Life (Paris 1996), Nuit Blanche, 1st Berlin Biennale, Manifesta 1, and more recently Uncertain States of America, 1st Moscow Triennale and 2nd Guangzhou Biennale (Canton China), Il Tempo del Postino with Philippe Parreno for the Manchester International Festival 2007 lecturer at Facolta delle Arti, IUAV in Venice since 2001 and since 2006 is the Co-director of exhibitions and programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, London

still in progress

Independent Contemporary Art Curating: (Harold Szeemann)

2009-08-04T16:17:00.003+01:00

This paper aims to consider and examine the development of the independent curator through the curatorial practice and exhibition making of Harold Szeemann, who has been notably identified as the “first” independent art curator. My overall line of enquiry is to ask whether the independent curator needs to be more creative, freethinking, opportunist and maverick in his curatorial practice than the curator in an institution, and asking what are the issues to the practice in terms of creativity, sustainability and power.

It is now widely accepted that the art history of the second half of the 20th C is no longer a history of artworks but a history of exhibitions . This history coincides with the emergence of a new professional category that of the curator, therefore an analysis of the role, practice and status of the independent curator within the contemporary art world, continues to be one of discussion and intrigue but also of some suspicion. The idea and role of an independent professional, can be seen as an entrepreneur, middleman, market trader, interloper, even trickster and mischief-maker. Walter Benjamin described a curator as being like a ‘smuggler’ and Felix Feneon that of a ‘catalyst’.

An analysis of the ‘career’ and track record of independent curators should extract something of the inherent practice and Harold Szeemann; the Swiss curator is often regarded as the contemporary genitor of the genre.

Exhibition making, either in galleries and museums or in non-traditional spaces has become the forum in which the public experience art. Unless they are a collector and have their own personal museum, we see our art in these spaces. Exhibitions have become the medium through which most art becomes known. The public perception of a curator is someone who works as a custodian of a collection, usually in a museum or gallery. Someone who takes care of things, links things together, interprets things for the public, facilitating their knowledge and experience. This type of curator still exists in most cities in the world but the contemporary role requires media, communication and business skills as well as creative and technical skills. The need to define the role of the curator is constantly debated, the recent American magazine, ‘Art Lies’ declared ‘the death of the curator’ ; it was only a matter of time of its demise but this then gives way to a new definition, a rethinking of the profession and practice.

In 2005, the photographer Balthasar Burkhard recorded a series of black and white photographs of the archive of Harold Szeemann curatorial materials . He had worked with Szeemann at the Kunsthalle in Bern as the photographer of the exhibitions that he curated. The archive photographs show intense shelving, stacking and some organisation of the documents that are created in exhibition making. The materials look like they have been initially organised into cardboard boxes and given letters and numbers, in an attempt at some sort of method but in time the piles of books, catalogues, models and images, have become more precarious and chaotic. There are also the trophies of exhibition making in the artworld, the photos of the curator with art star colleagues, the tree of luggage tags from every airport in the world, collected and displayed, the mountain sculpture, gifted paintings and the quotes and statements hanging in lines from the ceiling. It looks like an art installation but it took nearly 50 years to make.

The photographs show a passion, an intensity of doing and making things happen. Things must have happened to create such material. (as Dave Hickey stated, ‘somebody has to do something before we can do anything” ) They have the obsessiveness of a fan, a lover of the medium, and the people in it. There are similar obsessions in rock music. We are in awe of the avid cataloguing of record collecting. From the documentation of DJ John Peel’s vast collection, the genre fascism of the characters in the Hollywood films ‘High Fidelity’ (Stephen Frears 2000) and ‘Diner’ (Barry Levinson 1982), who know when someone has tampered with their system, to the documentary film, ‘Vinyl” (Alan Zweig 2000) which tragically but humorously tries to get to the bottom of the obsession.

Szeemann’s early curatorial activities were prodigious. He curated his first exhibition, “Painters Poets/ Poets Painters”, at the Kunstmuseum, St. Gallen, in 1957, at age 24. When he became the director of the Kunsthalle, Bern four years later, he completely transformed the institution, mounting twelve exhibitions a year, culminating in the pivotal exhibition “Live In Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form: Works-Concepts-Processes-Situations-Information”, in 1969. This exhibition exhibited works by 70 artists, including Joseph Beuys, Richard Serra, Eva Hesse, Lawrence Weiner, Richard Long, and Bruce Nauman, among many others.

The adaptation of the institutional structure to the artists and their needs is one of Szeemann’s major contributions. However, what was significant was that Szeemann quickly came into conflict with the institutions, by taking risks. According to Szeemann the exhibition came about only because ‘people from the Philip Morris company and the PR agency Ruder and Finn came to Bern and asked me if I would do a show of my own. They offered me money and total freedom” . In the exhibition catalogue the company saw a clever marketing parallel with there own policy, “as businessmen in tune with our times, we at Philip Morris are committed to support the experimental” although they held off from sponsoring any further contemporary art exhibition for a while, probably due to the adverse Swiss and International press which followed the exhibition. Stunned by the negative reaction to ‘When Attitudes Become Form’ from the governors of the Kunsthalle Bern, Szeemann quit his job, and essence becoming the first “independent curator”. He immediately set up The Agency for Spiritual Guestwork and co-founded the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT) in 1969, curated ‘Happenings & Fluxus’ at the Kunstverein in Cologne in 1970, and became the first artistic director of Documenta in 1972, reconceiving it as a 100-day event, which continues to today. Szeemann’s exhibition making continued until his death in 2005, with further ground breaking exhibitions such as ‘Bachelor Machines’ in 1975-77, ‘Monte Veritá’ (1978, 1983, 1987), initiating the first Aperto at the Venice Biennale (with Achille Bonito Oliva, 1980), ‘The Quest for the Total Work of Art” in 1983-84, ‘Visionary Switzerland’ in 1991, the Joseph Beuys retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in 1993, ‘Austria in a Lacework of Roses’ at the MAK Österreichisches Museum für angewandre Kunst, Vienna in 1996, and the Venice Biennale in 1999 and 2001.

The decision to quit his job in the Kunsthalle was not just a risk in life and work, but also an important decision on the future of how future curators might work. By changing the conditions of the exhibition and acknowledging new artistic practices, such as conceptual art, he considerably influenced the generation of the exhibition by inventing the position of the independent worker: the curator, creator, and author of the exhibition, and famously he preferred to call himself an exhibition maker. By transferring the place of the production of art within the space and the duration of the exhibition, he modified the relationship between the curator and artist. In particular, he showed that curatorial practice is a form of art in itself. What made Szeemann unique was the way in which he was simultaneously able to balance personal desires with professional constraints. Even so, by asserting the passion and subjectivity of the curator, in collaboration with artists and artworks, he redefined the curator’s role.

This action was pioneering, taking a stance, advancing the practice, kicking the ball up the park, as opposed to continuing the status quo but he was forever in the embrace and support of the art museum institution. In his guise as The Agency, he only ever curated one exhibition and continued to work in collaboration with the Swiss institutions. The director of the Kunstmuseum in Zurich employed him as a curator, with independent status. Gave him a wage, office space and equipment, which enabled him to survive and develop the independent practice that he took a risk to pioneer. If this is acceptable, then the independent status is about economy and self-sufficiency, it is about independence of structure, thought, creativity and the traditional role of a curator. The institute in other words allowed the independent to exist. There may be implications of the death of the curator; even in the early 1970s but by declaring its demise new pathways and possibilities are allowed emerge.

On his departure from the Kunsthalle in Bern, latterly it has been noticed within his Archive that Szeemann retained materials that would anchor his practice, allowing him to continue to reproduce the activity that he invented in the public domain on a private scale in his new emerging function. This is an interesting issue as in the move from the public to the private the curator, takes with him his intellectual capital but also needs to appropriate the organisational and economic support to enable the practice to continue. Therefore, this experience and specific knowledge is required to be understood but also to know its value and how and why it will assist in carrying on the practice. This material could be identified as essential tools of the trade; such as mailing lists of artists, dealers, owners, transport companies, funders, charities, critics, magazines, designers, writers, etc; information on budgeting, contracts, loan forms. In the commercial sector, this information is extremely valuable and is protected but in the public sector, there is more freedom of access to this information, as it needs to be passed around and learnt by the staff of the institutions so that the exhibition schedules and protocol is taken care of.

I can relate with this motivation myself, on leaving my job as Gallery Manager of the Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow in 1996, that to continue with an independent practice, I needed those materials.

The Szeemann archive stimulates memories of an encounter in 1985 with the Demarco Foundation Archive in the Blackfriars Street Church in Edinburgh that at the time Richard Demarco’s gallery. There were pyramids of materials, catalogues and print material, a small mountain of undeveloped 35mm film canisters. They had been arranged in a 3D timeline, categorised by the year so at a glance you could see how productive the year was. A few years later I saw the archive in St Mary’s School building that Demarco was using but it had been boxed up into cardboard archive boxes, like the ones used for evidence in financial fraud court cases. The evidence was there but it was less obvious than before. While reading about Szeemann and his practice, it seems similar to Demarcos. Demarco famously brought Joseph Beuys to Scotland in the 1970's.

Szeemann made his history with "When Attitudes Become Form" changing the way we experience an exhibition and how artists and curators make them. Szeemann and Demarco worked in similar ways, taking risks, being entrepreneurial, creative, risk taking, making things happen and keeping it going. Szeemann stated that every project was an adventure, but starting again with every project

Two issues appear to vindicate the significant career of such curators. The value of the work done in terms of retrospective importance, that only in time will be recognised.

Recent media of the “Trade Secrets” curatorial conference at the Banff Centre, Canada reported comments from English curator Matthew Higgs and others about the "pandemic" of curatorial courses available and that over studying, we may be developing ‘a new conformity in going against the modernist canon, but are we creating a new one?” Referring to what he perceived as too-frequent study of phenomena like the New York MOMA's "Information" exhibition of 1970 and Szeeman's archives. Or as Cuauhtémoc Medina said that curating to him was a 'paradise of the improvised" but "you may not be able to teach curating, it is possible and productive to educate curators".

Derieux, Florence, Harald Szeemann: Individual Methodology. Zurich: JRP|Ringier Kunstverlag AG; 2007. p 8.
Gupta, Anjali, ed. Death of the Curator, Art Lies, A Contemporary Art Quarterly, 2008; No.59.
Derieux, Florence, Harald Szeemann: Individual Methodology. Zurich: JRP|Ringier Kunstverlag AG; 2007. p 32-38.
Marincola, Paula, ed. Curating Now: Imaginative Practice/Public Responsibility. Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative; 2001, p. 128.
Obrist, Hans Ulrich, A Brief History of Curating. Dijon, Les Presses du Reel; 2008. p 86-87.
Ibid.

Too Fast - Slow Down, Huntly

2009-06-22T19:55:00.004+01:00

At the weekend, the Slow Down Walking and Cycling Festival took place in Huntly. Glasgow based artist Jacqueline Donachie had developed a public art event to encourage the locals out of their cars and onto their bikes. The event actually became an immense 4-mile collaborative performative drawing by the Cycling parade. Half the bikes had an ingenious drawing device attached to them, which drew a temporary coloured chalk line as they were cycled round the town. It was a euphoric and slightly anarchic experience, as though we were taking over the town. However, unlike an outlaw motorcycle gang, it was non-confrontational, pleasant and did not scare the locals. As we cycled along, at a swift pace, the local bystanders smiled and waved at the sight of all the bikes and whistles on the sunny Saturday afternoon. The parade travelled around the town then ended in the Battlehill quarry where Aberdeenshire artist, Merlyn Riggs had laid out a High Tea, in the form of a free bar and food. All very much a New Genre Public Art relational art piece efficiently produced by Donachie and Deveron Arts. The public made the artwork by their participation. The experience was of self-involvement, like the cast of extras in a film or the chorus in a theatre play. The satisfaction was that we were supportive with our role and position. The best view seemed to be from the sky, looking down on the town, we could only imagine what it was like but perhaps this is where the art was.

Later in the afternoon in Battlehill Woods, we could just be an audience. In small groups, we were led along the path to where Catriona McKay and Alistair MacDonald as Strange Rainbow played live harp and electronics. The music started with the sounds you heard when walking from the quarry to the clearing in the woods where the performance took place. It was an intense, emotional and contemplative experience. The highly controlled music’s every note and sound selected and placed, like a form of live curating. The ambient sounds of the wind in the trees, cars on the main road and a plane in the air became fleeting parts, this was where we really slowed down.

2009-06-14T21:16:00.002+01:00

Authenticity

2009-06-14T21:09:00.003+01:00

Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore website of their Authenticity book

Review of Progress 2

2009-06-14T21:04:00.000+01:00

My objectives are to continue to define curatorial practice through critical analysis of my own and others’ practice. I have produced a comprehensive analytical text that defines and maps out my own experience and learning from an institutional profession of curating through to an independent individual practice. There is now an urgency to underpin this analysis from a historical and theoretical prospective, therefore I will research and produce a number of papers which analyse the theory, methods and practices of important curatorial figures including Harold Szeemann, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Richard Demarco, Dan Cameron and Matthew Higgs. I will also research and derive a historical spectrum of curatorial practices focusing primarily on Scotland, which determine the context and value systems in which the contemporary art institutions and the independent art curators work and exist.

I am also in the process of developing 3 collaborative curatorial projects with Deveron Arts, Huntly, Cake magazine, Aberdeen, and Limousine Bull Art Collective/NTS, Aberdeenshire which will be presented in September – November 2009. These test projects will place my research and curatorial practice in the public sphere. I will also continue to archive and test projects through my research blog - http//:iainirvingresearch.blogspot.com.

I will also seek ways to integrate my research formally into my scholarly role at Gray’s, through the UG Critical and Contextual Studies programme and Masters seminar programme.

Curating a List

2009-06-12T14:26:00.000+01:00

Curating by hand

2009-06-08T13:55:00.004+01:00

Calum Stirling - Art Project Name Generator

2009-06-05T15:46:00.002+01:00

In Art Projects go to Art Project Name Generator.

I remember coming across Calum's site a number of years ago and the Art Project Name Generator which I'm still not sure is just a bit of fun or a real critism of the banality of exhibition titles. Probably both.

acuratorialconcept

2009-06-05T15:03:00.007+01:00

These hypothetical exhibition ideas are turning into curating as writing, as its as much as is said or contextualised as there is space between and around the words.

Vision of Humanity

2009-06-03T15:20:00.002+01:00

Global Peace Index

Angus Hood interview

2009-05-28T22:58:00.001+01:00

ANGUS

Dellar telling us about London links

2009-05-25T16:07:00.000+01:00

The Blue Chamber (revisited once)

2009-05-25T15:24:00.003+01:00

The Blue Chamber (revisited twice)

2009-05-25T15:23:00.002+01:00

The Blue Chamber (revisited thrice)

2009-05-25T15:19:00.002+01:00