B arb a ra M u l a s IN CONVERSATION WITH GABI SCARDI THE INDEPENDENT CURATOR AND THE NEW GENRE PUBLIC ART
A k no wled gm e n ts I would like to thank Gabi Scardi for numerous reasons. First of all and no doubt, I am grateful to her for accepting to give her contribution to this Fanzine: I am really grateful for the time and the words shared with me. I am also grateful for introducing me in this world, and for trusting me since the beginning; I feel the need to thank her for her modesty and transparency, for having been my inspiration and model, Thanks to her now I know what I want to be in the future, and only thanks to this energy I can face new challenges. I would also like gave me advices
to say thank and feedback,
you to which
all I
the people who always appreciate.
I n t rodu c tio n This Fanzine has been driven by a desire of delving deeper the world of the independent curating, with a special interest toward the New Genre Public Art field. Aware of the fluctuating meaning of the word “independent” associated to a curator - independent from what? independet at what level?-, in order to avoid misurderstoods or simplifications, I decided to focus my attention only on one contemporary curator: Gabi Scardi. Gabi Scardi is a contemporary art curator and critic from Italy working worldwide. I opted to explore her perspective because I had the pleasure to meet her and to personally get in touch with her operate: to be honest, she has been the one who introduced me in the world of the social practice. Indeed, she’s frequently involved in social projects and public commissions: for instance, she recently curated the Greek Pavillion for the 56th Venice Biennal with a great project by the Greek artist Maria Papadimitriou; another recent commission has been the Burri ‘s Teatro Continuo restoration in Sempione Park in Milan, a massive public project started in the 70s and never concluded until last year. I proposed to her my idea, and she immediately agreed with it. We met in mid- December in Milan, it was a cold yet sunny afternoon. She welcomed me in her apartment in Moscova, a really central, nice and quite area of Milan, where we started to chat in front of a hot, cinnamon-smelly tea. The in
original Italian
draft and
of only
the
interview has then translated
been into
released English.
W h at do e s t o c ura te mea n?
W h at i s t he r o l e o f a p u bl i c a r t cu ra tor?
To curate means a lot of things; and there are as many meanings as the curators, since it is related with thinking. It is a kind of privilege: stay close to the artists and nurture a reflection that comes from being in contact with them. Curating means thus helping them to work well, to operate and realize their projects, and this means of course to exhibit them. Curating means also transferring the content of an artist’s work to the audience… [and referring to public art] the widest audience possible. And to do it, reaching the core of the artist’s research appears of major importance. A central and indescribable core does always exist, which indeed is not easy to reveal nor express; the core is not the artwork, but the starting point from which ideas, projects and art works arise. The role of the curator is thus to get as closest as possible to this artist’s core, in order to transmit it in the most immaculate and proper way to the audience. The curator permits to the artist to open, manifest and expose him/herself. It’s an open role, open to plays and interpretations. The contemporary curator is a facilitator, a cultural mediator and communicator, but it’s not everything so far: the huge work is upstream, in the relation and communication with the artist him/herself. [From this perspective] the curator becomes a travel partner, the first interlocutor, a listener, a mirror for the artist who can examine his/her work through conversations and reactions. The curator is the one who helps the artist to adjust the aim of his/her research, and [for this reason] he/she has to be flexible.
D o yo u t h i n k t h e r ol e of t he cura tor has changed? Is not possible to identify a single way of curating, and it has not even been a single evolution during the time. The filed has evolved as much as the structures has changed together with the requests. The mass communication system nowadays is overwhelming and it is part of the curators’ profession. What one has to do is to try to stay one step forward the system, stay up with the evolution in order to survive without being absorbed.
Is t h e c u r a t or a c rea tor? Curating is about interpreting. I don’t believe in neutrality, and it is not even desirable. Everyone who’s engaged with the thought has an active role. But there are different degrees of interpreting, and this means that one must leave space to the artist: this doesn’t mean being neutral, yet being able to pull back. Deciding to work with an artist represents itself a stance. The curator’s work is always an authorial work: the quality of his/her work thus lays in the capability of pulling oneself back and let space to the artist’s research. So yes, the curator indeed is a creator. For instance, let’s talk about organizing a collective exhibition: if different curators would be asked to prepare a collective exhibition with same artists and artworks, the final outputs will be very different to each other. Again, working with the thought is itself an authorial work: choices, critical choices, are always unique. Of course, there’s a big difference between being authorial and seizing the works for personal purposes.
How important i s i t t o u n d e r s t and c o n t e m p or a r y s oc iety ? The curator is first of all a human being and individual living within the society, which is part of this society. It is not possible, thus, for him/her to avoid it. To deal with and make use of widely valence issues and to work in the public and communal realm is the [public art curator] penchant.
To w h a t e x t e n t a p u b l i c a r t c u r ator h as a s oc i a l r e sp onsibil ity? The public art curator is like the rest of the curators but, because of the type of practice, he/she needs to be more aware and sensitive than the others. The curator has the responsibility of the artwork’s reaching the public in his whole integrity without simplifications. Hence, [the public art curator has] a huge social role; he/she has a social responsibility since the audience is not the informed one, but the widest possible. [His/her] mission is to reach a wide audience, to fit him/herself in as part of the society, in order to pull out themes from it to be developed and given back to people: to activate them.
To w h a t e x t e n t d o yo u n e e d t o ta k e risks? It’s a risky profession. It’s really easy to create misunderstandings, or don’t stimulate anything at all: this wide audience is not looking for art, and it is often difficult to make a start on the communication. .
I s yo u r w o r k stimulating a social practice? Activate people represents a social responsibility, but participation is never the aim, yet an element among the others that helps the work to work and to be effective. It is about succeed on reaching people by transmitting the message effectively. The participation permits to the message to become personal experience, and then knowledge. It permits to people to come back to their life with something added, something more.
W h o d e c i d e s w hich social i s s u e s w i l l b e a ddressed a n d r e p r e s e n t e d ? ( Kwon, 2002: 117) The addressed issues arise from combinations of people and/or situations. [Working in the public realm means to deal with] very complex processes in which the artist remains autonomous and free, but with which he/she has to compare him/herself to. Sometimes is the curator that get the artist involved, if he/he thinks the artist’s work fits with the topic. For sure this is a field that often involves public positions, even whether smaller and more autonomous situations do exist.
H o w do e s a g r o up of peop l e b e c om e i d e n t i f i ed a s a c o m m u n i t y ? (Kwon 2002:116-117)
W h o i de n t i f y t he m a s suc h?
(K w o n 2 0 0 2 : 1 1 7 )
D o es t he p a r t n er c o m m u n i t y p r e exist t h e a r t p r oj e c t or i t i s p r o du c e d by it? (Kwon 2002:117)
Community is a quite strange and tricky word. Of which community are we talking about? What is it? Of how many people is composed? Is it temporary? Or pre-existing? Every situation is to be considered different. The artist is working for and with a set of individualities: distinct singularities unified by interests, memories, feautres in common, but call them community can often be a mistake. These questions are still unanswered because every situation is different and generalizations are not recommended.
W h a t i s t h e n a t ure of the c o llabor a t i v e r e l a tion ship ( ar t i s t - c om m u n ity ) ? (Kwon 2002:117) A n d a m o n g t h e curator a n d the a r t i s t (s ) ?
The established relations are every time different: a standard way doesn’t exist.
A r e t h e r e p a r a meters o f fa i l u r e a n d s u c c ess? The artwork needs to echo, to resound: it must reach the audience, and be both elaborated and interpreted. What does happen in the way is what counts: it must happen something. The work must be responsive: the criteria is an artwork’ intrinsic factor. A unique and universal canon doesn’t exist. [Every parameter of judgment] is an inner part of the project and it belongs to its objective. Failures do exist of course: the work sometimes doesn’t talk at all, sometimes some time is needed. The feedback is not immediate; [a public work] often requires some time to be digested. In the collaboration with “communities”, a parameter of success does exist [but its about the artists not about the artworks]: intellectual honesty is required, only with it is possible to work well. In addition, [the artist working in the public realm is characterized by] a will to know and examine in depth, with sensibility and calm. Sometimes failures are effective if seen from other viewpoints: the artist look to the others through him/herself, and to him/herself through the others; his/ her work is made by intentionality, form and other elements to be composed. A canon of success, thus, is impossible. Art is indeed exceeding canon and rules. Every artwork is different and it’s the artist that creates his/her own rules. The curator every time enters different world, with different vocabularies, rules, and references. Every artist creates an exemplar world, is not possible thus to have an already established parameters. Nowadays art is multidisciplinary and made by contaminations. Hence its efficacy can be measured, of course, by the audience immediate reaction and engagement, but partially ex post, with the passing of time. For sure one of the most important features is the artist’s accuracy, and for the curator, as a consequence, the ability to understand and express the artist’s world with the artist’s own vocabulary.
Who pays for it? The funding of this kind of projects depends on the value given by Governments to the culture as an active agent within the society for the built of an aware citizenship. Public funds thus are possible only after a public awareness of the possibility of change through urbanism, art and culture.
A p p e n di x I
New G e n r e P u bl i c A rt
New Genre Public Art can be identified as “that art that uses both traditional and non-traditional media to communicate and interact with a broad and diversified audience about issues directly relevant to their lives - [it] is based on engagement� (Lacy, 1994: 19). According to Lacy, by attacking boundaries, new genre public artists draw on ideas from vanguard forms, but they add a developed sensibility about audience, social strategy and effectiveness that is unique to visual art as we know it today (1994: 20). The new genre public artists deal with an art interaction-based which focuses more on the process rather than on a final output: according to Nicholas Bourriaud, it is an art based on human interaction (2010).
A p p e n di x I I
Po st - m o de r n P l ura l ism
Pluralism in the arts has been declared by the Post-modern era. Post-modern, as declared by Danto, has been ratified by the Warhol practice whose tendency was to blur the line between art and life, and it took us both into the end of art and of the possibility of an evolutionary narrative (2010: VI). This idea of a non-historical art future makes of the present something completely open (Danto, 2010: VII), and indeed it opened new possibilities also for the curatorial, which took a completely different direction from curating in museums and institutions.
A p p e n di x I I I
T h e r ol e of t he C u ra tor
Being a curator today means to take care of something, or someone. It means being a friend, the first seener, the first listener; a collaborator, an help, a viewpoint and a translator. It means also being an editor, a coreographer, a catalyst and a mediator. Being a curator means to be flexible and openminded. It means being able to be different things into one. Being independent thus means to be free; free from fixed institutions, roles or departments. It is about having the chance to move around.
S o urc es Bourriaud N. (2010), “Estetica relazionale”, Milano: Postmedia Books Creative & Cultural Skills, “Being an independent curator” by Cecilia Wee [online] Available from: http://ccskills.org.uk/careers/advice/article/being-an-independentcurator [Accessed 07 January 2016] Danto A. C. (2010), “Oltre in Brillo Box – il mondo dell’arte dopo la fine della storia”, Milano: Christian Marinotti Edizioni Scardi G., (2015), Interviewed by Barbara Mulas, 15th December 2015 Kwon M., (2002), “One place after another – Site-specific art and locational identity” , Cambridge Massachusetts – London: The MITT Press Lacy S., (1994) “Mapping the Terrain – New Genre Public Art” , Seattle-Washington: Bay Press