TERMINAL SOUVENIRS:
WHAT IS WRONG WITH CURATORIAL
PRACTISE TODAY (Pubisher: NIFCA (The Nordic Institute Contemporary art), no.1 1998, pp. 189—197)
Maia Damianovic
Let me begin by saying that 1 would like to enter into a dialogue with you about certain issues, that in my opinion, afflict current exhibition and curatorial practice. My comments will be directed to events and exhibitions that 1 have visited over the course of the last several months. 1 would also like to say that my statement is a speculative and personal commentary. 1 do not want to insist categorizing the following ideas - 1 would, ideally, want to leave them as open as possible - especially to my own changes of opinion. In addition, when developing these ideas 1 was interested in the notion of a certain naiveté, that is, 1 wanted to leave my positions vulnerable, basic and quite general.
Today we are confronted with a crises of the exhibition context, largely due to the uncanny ability of our current modes of presentation to subdue rather than extend the scope of art work. All our traditional internal exhibition spaces, whether they be galleries or museums, are quickly becoming less and less suited for any real interaction with vibrant, innovative art. In spirit, most of our current exhibition venues rnore closely resemble archives than forums for open-ended engagement. Many of these contemporary venues merely embrace the classical intentions of the archive as an institution set up for hunting, gathering and conserving public documents for the edification of a grateful and submissive public.
The rush of critical themes that have emerged over the last decade, such as sentlence, subjectivity, engagement, interaction, sug,gest a desire to relocate, to find an alternative situation not only within art practice, but with its essential Other - the viewer. As a part of a new theoretical recipe, curators seem to want to emphasize more interaction, out-reach. A community of sensitive correspondences between artwork - artist - viewer being proclaimed everywhere. However, many discussions and efforts later, these critical maxims run the risk of becoming mere designer label criticisms.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that, despite our proclaimed goals of developing interaction and communication skills, the curadon and presentadon of art today more often than not translates into a smattering of artful and, unfortunately, not very innovative or exciting practices that are at worst playing it safe or more often, simply have no where else to go, than to contradict the critical theory behind them. There is nothing harmless here. It's as if in practice we are leaving theory behind, and cannot or simply will not translate critical issues into practice.
lt seems like an endless game, a discussion without end. The public display of art is still restricted to those spaces officially sanctioned for that purpose, to the museums and art galleries, as well as other institutionalized exhibition venues. This prompts a whole bevy of questions. How can an artwork, how can the gallery and the museum, how can the public presentation of art itself, escape the gravitational pull of established conventions? How can they initiate a communication that ventures into alien and unchartered territories, and so evade the centripetal pull of this archival instinct, as well as the financial, the ideological and the critical conventions and impediments governing the display of art work today? Again, these are not new ideas or questions, but as long as practice falls short of its theoretical pretensions, they will continue to be valid. The widespread practice of presenting artwork in neutral, white interiors is a case in point: these become as sterile as the rooms themselves, far removed from the messiness of differentiated and specific situations. Just recently, I was struck by the extremely stilted appearance of the artwork in the overrenovated, impossibly white interior of the Kulturbahnhof building in Kassel at the documenta X. This type of presentation is emblematic of Modernist universalisms and ideals. Such exhibition practices
create a sense of distance between artwork and viewer that does little to enhance interaction. Often we still seem to be in pursuit of the marble clad archive with art placed in a comforting, non-threatening, protective zone.
Instead of creating structures of distance or zones of demarcation between artwork and its public, it would behoove curators to seek more aggressive presentation and display situations. It is not that every artwork requires touch or interaction, some indeed, depend on distancing, but this is a specific case to show how certain conventions can overtake the potential of an artwork.
This insensitivity also permeates our conventions of displaying individual artwork. This became painfully clear to me when viewing the Helio Oiticica and Lygia Clark presentation also at documenta X. Both artists were loved for their brilliant and very lively live performances. Oiticica's parangoles were colorful pieces of clothing (popularly known as capes) usually worn during samba parades by dancers who often came from Rio's barrios. The movements of their wearers were essential in creating the artwork, which metamorphosized into a swirl of vivid colors and arabesque movements. But, couldn't anyone think of something - anything - a bit more engaging (perhaps a re-enactment of the performances?) than the present display where the garments are passively draped over a clothing rack?
Although they are not as encumbered as museums by an ideology of function or other agenda, galleries it seems, are not looking for alternatives outside, or at.least on the margins of the exhibition convention. The recent mass renovations in Chelsea, the "new" art district in New York reveal an aesthetic that seems to be preeminently preoccupied with creating a zone of easy and luxurious display for the shopping comfort of its potential wellheeled clients. Often the effect is little more than walking into well equipped, spanking new, over-designed art stores.
Whether in large or small venues, galleries or museums, the by now historical methodology of Modernism that perfected a more or less conventional aesthetic of displaying and presenting art publicly seems to be safe in place. All too often, the peremptory
halls and walls of our exhibition venues display artwork as reified objects for an exclusive public. By endorsing passive types of presentation and display, we do little else than express a limited desire and a limited opportunity for both artwork and viewer. I recently saw an exhibition of works on paper that were displayed under such immaculate, identical frames that seemed to selfconsciously encompass little pockets of sensitivity. Framed by the twentieth century convention of a neutral, idealized setting, the artwork has little chance of initiating an individual dialogue and whatever interaction it can effect is confined to an ever-repeating set of controlled conditions.
Particularly worrisome is the ever present large survey exhibition. Instead of encouraging differentiation, the large survey exhibition more often than not ends up being an over-determined and encyclopedic venture that sets out to please virtually everyone. Large number of artists and works are squeezed in willy-nilly, often with little mutual interaction other than an arbitrary classification according to nationality, gender, or some other glib category borrowed from the world of cautionary politics. Grouping artists together according to an ideologically loaded curatorial agenda that often disregard the artist's own critical positions is an aggressive and counterproductive form of packaging. Perhaps the action of the Broodthaer's Foundation on the eve of the documenta X opening was more than a mere caprice. Their disagreement with the curator‘s unresponsiveness to specific installation requirements, that were requested some time before the opening of the exhibition, provided a voice of confrontation to an autocratic curatorial pejorative. Unfortunately, many of the younger or less established artists cannot afford to raise their volces in this way. 1 was really dismayed to hear that in 1997 more than ten blennials will be held intemationally. Why do we share this situation? We seem to be embracing an aesthetic of informatica. Is it simply that large exhibitions bring with them large revenues and publicity that both curators and artists need? Yet, it seems that, regardless of any failings, the attention garnered by the large survey or group exhibition is a constant reminder of the financial revenue and cultural prestige it affords both curator and host venue. Many large exhibitions are trophy shows, too blue chip to ever really fail.
Although several of the projects in Kasper König‘s exhibition in Münster were obviously helped by their outdoor in situ situation that lent them greater freedom to explore something more individual and authentic, Andreas Slominski's intervention could have been done indoors or outdoors. lt allowed for the art piece to disappear before the exhibition even opened. Only hearsay of the work remained (a bicycle tire that might or might not have been put around a dismantled street lamp) lingered on. But, for the most part, curators often seem locked into exhibition conventions that cannot really allow for such disappearances - however conspicuous and evocative they may be. For the most part, it seems as if Museums, galleries and curators simply cannot or do not want to allow for the possibility of failure.
Closure is still the name of the game. The much publicized desire of curators to interrupt the conventional "feeding chain" and abolish "consumerism" in art is becoming increasingly suspect. Most of us at one time or another will opt to play it safe: i.e. follow some ideological, political, aesthetic or conceptual recipe that we regard as a formula for success. Perhaps, we are becoming simply more success orientated and less and less willing to make controversial decisions, to take risks and sometimes also to fail. Curating has always been a matter of degrees and nuances of compromise between critical, practical and pragmatic considerations, but the cross-over of these varied interests is becoming ever more complex and troubling. We seem to be living in an age where pragmatism is displacing poetics: indeed, so much so that curatorial sincerity runs the risk of being branded as naive Candidism.
Curating today often seems confused or uninformed, if not downright disingenuous. At any rate, the promises of "outreach", "communicational skill", "interaction" and "engagement" - whatever they might mean - are rarely fulfilled. Indeed, whatever one speculates and whatever we advance theoretically, I would venture to say that many curatorial practices today pursue secure and well tried positions that do little to upset the existing status quo.
Too often, we can discern in current practice the insidious an implacable macula of conservative constraint trying to disguise itself behind critical, ideological and political posturing. Our theories and our practices, for the most part, simply do not match, Over and over again, we are confronted by didactic, pedagogic and formulaic curatorial mechanisms that glamorize a gamut of dull, dry or safe conceptual choices. Are the mechanisms surrounding curating so elaborately enshrined that we are confronted with a symptom of overwhelming conservatism, of being stuck in the pursuit of easy prescriptions, but also perks and rewards? In any case, curating today opens to a whole field of different investments, that seamlessly slip into the arena of politics, power and finances at the mercy of all their jumbled forces. But, politics and ideology can also become packaged commodities.
Art practice, however, it seems, is in redestination. Today a growing number of artists are seeking dramatic flights that splinter practice into a heterogeneity of thought provoking situations. Practices range from the aesthetic of invisibility, when the actual artwork is elusive and ephemeral to the point of being whisper short of visibility as an artwork; to a variety of functional ambivalences where pieces that are formally-aesthetically- attractive enough are also and as much, practical products intended for everyday use; to another type of functional ambivalence, the creation of hybrid situations that merge forms, contents and contexts in what could be cafled trans-categorical ways and that often include real life situations and people. Artists are increasingly seeking conspicuously peripatetic practices, various political, psychological, economic situations that would relocate the artwork outwards beyond its art world framework into a broader territory of activity.
These marginal and mobile practices are less interested in the antiquated question: "when does an artwork begin", than to alienate or manipulate or seduce a viewer's perception into a suggestive or disturbing or estranged place. Their desire to take flight also expresses a desire to activate the participaüon of the essential Other of art practice, the viewer, as a perceiver-participant. lt becomes not only a question of disturbing the aesthetic, conceptual, formal, that is the internal confines of an artwork, but of activating the same mechanisms outward towards a viewer and disturbing the comfortable confines of how they are used to approaching or interacting with an artwork - that is consuming it.
A growing number of practices allow for something curating is neglecting: the need to activate the communication between artwork and viewer by taking a subjective situation to an extreme or dramatic point where there is no sure border or limit to the subiect-object relationship. But, despite all of our discussions, the majority of exhibitions today lack charisma. They either fall flat or retreat back into the safety zone of artful convention. lt is as if curators cannot or do not want to draw the practice of the public presentation of art practice away from the gravitational pull of various institutional conventions. Located within protected contexts, sealed with various stamps of approval, the public perception of artwork has also become institutionalized - one is tempted to say in every sense of the word.
So how do we stop the process? Finding altemative, less ostentatious, more aggressive presentation practices and exhibition venues may be one way. Especially interesting in this context could be "situational" curatorial concepts that take as their goal the presentation of perplexing situations that could disturb the ubiquitous, familiar - and comfortable - conventions of presentation and interaction between a work of art and its public. I am not endorsing an over-exploited "street poster" situational aesthetics, but a much more general unraveling of exhibition mechanisms and conventions of practice already in place. Situationalism in curating could stretch over a much broader conceptual, formal, political territory.
But, then why should practices already in place endorse their own potential unraveling? After all, curatorial work and exhibition practices are also commodifiable objects. To exist, they have surrounded themselves by protective policies and authorities. But, as they presently exist, they are becoming less and less viable modes of access and discussion between artwork and public.
Why are we so complicit? A transformation of curating and exhibiting today could amount to an ethical and political change of destination. A change of destination that would eschew comfort, self-gratification and success, and open itself to insecurity and anxiety; moving from protected to vulnerable contexts. lt could also move from pragmatics to poetics.
In finding altemative methods and practices we are only limited by our subjectivities. There is no singular appropriateness involved in this process of transformation, only ambiguity. The scope of this change could become broad, still testing its limits, somewhere between critical judgment and explorative commentary.
A little confusion and chaos would work wonders. Why not swim against the current a little more; against the large survey show, 'against curating as a formula of success by default. Perhaps the curating and exhibiting of art today should be anxious, insecure practices.
Victor Hugo wrote "to entrust is sometimes to abandon." To entrust art today is perhaps a question of letting go, of abandoning the authority of our practice. This type of abandonment is either crucial or simply a dream. But, perhaps, we could also be allowing for an exceptionally generous loss of identity.
Maia Damianovic
critic and independent curator, New York