Curationism
How Curating Took Over the Art World and Everything Else
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- US$6.99
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- US$6.99
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Now that we 'curate' even lunch, what happens to the role of the connoisseur in contemporary culture?
‘Curate’ is now a buzzword, applied to everything from music festivals to artisanal cheese. Inside the art world, the curator reigns supreme, acting as the face of high-profile group shows and biennials in a way that can eclipse and assimilate the contributions of individual artists. Curatorial-studies programs continue to grow, and the business world is adopting curation as a means of adding value to content. Everyone, it seems, is a curator.
But what is a curator, exactly? And what does the explosive popularity of curating say about our culture’s relationship with taste, labour and the avant-garde? In this vibrant, revelatory and original study, David Balzer travels through art history and around the globe to explore the cult of curation, from superstar curator Hans Ulrich Obrist’s war with sleep to Subway’s ‘sandwich artists.’ Recalling such landmark works of cultural criticism as Tom Wolfe’s The Painted Word and John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, Curationism will change the way you look at art – and maybe even the way you see yourself.
‘This is an unusual art book. It is a book you should read and one that you can. Balzer traces the history and current hegemony of curationism, a practice of jumped-up interior decorators who double as priests explaining the gospel to the unlettered masses. A good read, if you don’t mind reading things that you don’t want to know.’ – Dave Hickey
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Curation is an ever-evolving field that Balzer unpacks under the twin rubric of value and work. Considered primarily in the context of the art world, Balzer focuses on the modern period, which sees the curate as transformed from the impresario and arbiter of taste of the early 19th century to the imprimatur and interpreter needed to "parse" the conceptual art of the '60s. This led to the rise of many star curates such as Hans Ulrich Obrist functioning as bricoleurs whose assemblages not only provided orientation but legitimacy. The inheritance of this tradition remains in a diffuse sense through institutions and individuals. Not only the art world but consumer culture on the whole is not only based on selection and presentation, but is dependent upon this fundamental need for categorization and meaning making. Balzar argues that "curationism," as a generative act, now occurs on all levels from the endorsements of Madonna, whom people may heed as a bellwether, to how they decide to represent themselves on Facebook. This becomes the grammar of identity. Although this book is truly engaging, as a critical overview of curation, its extended use sees the term become almost bankrupt while the ensuing arguments are at once derivative and unconvincing.
