How to do things with curatorship / step 4

step #4 : ENJOY IT

#4

step #4 : ENJOY IT

1_

how to do things with curatorship

DO NOT DISMISS THIS STEP AS AN ANECDOTIC AND WISHFUL THING. YOU MIGHT PUT YOURSELF IN DANGER OF EXHAUSTING YOURSELF. KEEP IN MIND THAT YOU ARE ALSO PART OF THE SOCIETY WHOSE LIVES YOU TRY TO IMPROVE WITH YOUR CURATORSHIP, SO IT WOULD NOT MAKE SENSE IF YOU NEGLECT YOUR OWN WELLBEING. AND THERE ACTUALLY ARE AT LEAST TWO WAYS TO DO THAT AS PRACTICAL CURATORIAL STRATEGIES: IMPROVISING AND TAKING YOUR VALUES TO WORK.

_2

step #4 : ENJOY IT As you might have noticed from the previous steps in this handbook, you need a lot of motivation if you want to do things with curatorship. All the steps and the examples illustrate a challenging working environment, where you constantly need to be innovative, to explain yourself, to coordinate between various aspects of curating and probably other steps that where not mentioned in this handbook, like sourcing for funding and creating an economical security for yourself. In other words, it does not look easy to do things with curatorship, and therefore you must have incentive to not move to another profession, or just to stop doing. I would suggest that incentive be that you enjoy it, make sure it is a pleasant thing for you to do.

TAKE YOUR VALUES TO WORK The process of curating should be an extension of who you are, and express your values. If you are a social person who likes working with people, for example, you can express it by avoiding solo projects or virtual exhibitions that are based on computer work. If you do not support capitalism try curating projects with free entrance and avoid commercial sponsorships. If you are a feminist, or pan-african, or environmentalist, those can be a part of your choices as a curator, even if those topics are not the main purpose of your project.

Between April and June 2013 I was curating The Activist Origami Project. Every day on my way to school, or other activities outside

3_

how to do things with curatorship my home, I would ‘plant’ an origami flower in a random public spot for a stranger to find. The flowers were made of papers I gathered (school printouts or commercial leaflets) and contained a folded piece of paper with a textual message, a poem or a quote. I left an Activist Origami flower by the window of a shared minibus taxi, on the sink in public bathroom and behind the computer screen in the Internet cafe.

This project is an example of expressing environmental values in curating. The environment awareness value was expressed in the project’s strategy not only by the recycling of the papers, but in the larger concept. The project Coroelee Thea: as a whole required no new "You scorn objects material production – not for the in favour of real-time artworks, not for the exhibition/ experience conveys distribution of them and not for the sense that the marketing. At some point I you’re undermining even tried colouring the papers in consumerism – a red with water left after cooking Buddhist notion of beetroot, but that didn’t work as non-attachment?

I envisioned. I was influenced by the Conceptualist critique of the Rirkrit Tiravanija: ‘material worship’, and did not ‘Of course’ want my project to create more potential stuff that will become potential garbage. Instead I tried

_4

step #4 : ENJOY IT to give new value to what already was potential garbage.

You can find the environment awareness also in other curatorial choices, like the space and the target audience. Designing a curatorial project in a public transport, for the users of public transport, is a deed that supports this means of moving in the city as opposed to driving a car, or taking a cab. This artistic act intends to prioritise the wellbeing

VALERIA GESELEV, THE ACTIVIST ORIGAMI INTERVENTION IN A CAPE TOWN TAXI (2013)

5_

how to do things with curatorship of the public transport passengers, creating another small good reason to use this environment friendlier means of transport. The Activist Origami project was a creative attempt to invest value in what I saw as a ‘wasted time’ created by the structures of urban transport system and the numbing mental effect it can have on the passengers.

There is a rich chapter in art history about practices of sustainable art-making, with streams like Ready-made, Conceptualism and Performance, just to name a few. Those three very different art movements all are versions of sustainable art-making that does not exploit new material resources in its creation.

RICHARD LONG. TAME BUZZARD LINE (2001)

_6

step #4 : ENJOY IT Back in 1913 Marcel Duchamp used two existing objects (a wheel and a stool) to create Bicycle Wheel what became one of the masterpieces of 20th century art, and the artist’s first Ready made (Masheck 1975: 173). 100 years later, and the same ‘trick’ is still being executed. In the 2013 Venice Biennale Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (who has let a lot of socially engaged curatorial projects) has installed 886 wooden stools in the main gallery of the German pavilion to reflect on the fast changes and modern development in China (Bang 2010-2013).

In the middle of 20th century, the dematerialisation of art became a valid term, thanks to the American curator Lucy Lippard (see step 1 for more). Under the Conceptual Art movement the notion of the idea being more important than the form was accepted into the art world (von Hantelmann 2010: 144). That allowed various artists to make art as a stance against materialism (Thea 2009: 82). As another way of materially sustainable art making you can look at Performance Art, that does the same as theatre, dance or singing – uses the body as a material (see Tino Sehgal's work).

PLEASE NOTE! Curating in a materially sustainable way means using what you already have as much as possible.

It means exhibiting where people are already at, and not making them come to a venue in town from the suburbs.

Unless the pilgrimage effect is what you want them to feel, it will just be an effort

7_

how to do things with curatorship Another aspect of sustainability that you should consider in your curatorial doings is the financial one. People have enough expenses already in their lives, rich or poor they will tell you that. Try your projects not to add to that financial burden on your audience, and do the best you can to assure free approach/entrance. To succeed in that is a challenge, considering the fact that you do need to pay your bills.

For a lack of better advice, I’ll remind you of alternative forms of economy, like volunteering, partnership, barters and favours.

And it is very much important for your curatorship to be emotionally/ mentally sustainable. Try using it tool as a cure, not as a cause of something bad. As artist Sophie Calle said - ‘live happy moments and exploit the unhappy ones’.

IMPROVISE When you are working on an idea for a curatorial project you will rarely find things go exactly according to your plans. Embrace from the beginning this understanding - things will probably go wrong, and you will have to respond to it. As the proverb has it – ‘life is what happens when you are busy making plans’. Your skills of improvisation should be sharpened. A curator that wishes to do must be as good in responding to unexpected changes during the work as she is good in planning the project before. Look at every unplanned change to your project as an opportunity; tell yourself it all happens to challenge you

_8

step #4 : ENJOY IT to be better. As a creative Doer you should not expect things to flow in a sterile manner. Remember always that you do not work in a vacuum.

You might find it useful to look back to step 2 – remind yourself what is your core purpose, and that it is not executing a flawless project but to use the project as means for something else.

For an inspiring example on curatorial improvisation you can look at Sophie Calle’s exhibi"The curator should tion in Bronx, New York (1980). always be open to This French Conceptual artist surprise so that the was about to exhibit her project unexpected might in Fashion Moda Gallery. It was happen" meant to be a site specific project Hans Ulrich Obrist where she asked strangers to take her to a place of their choice in the South Bronx district. On the night before the opening ‘an unexpected collaborator’ broke into the gallery and sprayed graffiti on the walls and on Calle’s hanging works.

Now what would you as a curator do in this situation? Freak out?

Worry? Stress? Hurry to paint the walls? To change the frames? Curse the police and the criminals? That would be the wrong approach, even though it’s natural to go that way. But instead you should embrace the happenings and improvise.

After finding her works of art ‘vandalized’ with graffiti Calle

9_

how to do things with curatorship

SOPHIE CALLE, BRONX (1980)

decided to embrace the unexpected. She left the graffiti just as she found it and went on with the opening. It was an exhibition about Bronx, and the graffiti was a part of that neighbourhood (Calle 2003: 305-309). This improvisation of including a new component to the exhibition is a curatorial decision that needs to be inspiration for you next time something will go not according to plans. Sticking to her purpose of connecting the commissioning gallery to its surroundings, Calle embraced the unexpected, and made the graffiti an integral part of The Bronx project, just like the textual and visual testimonies that she has collected from the district’s people.

Or take the Last seen project held by Isabella Stewart Gardner

_10

step #4 : ENJOY IT Museum in Boston for another example of improvisation in curatorship. On March 18, 1990, five drawings by Degas, one vase, one Napoleonic eagle and six paintings by Rembrandt, Flinck, Manet and Vermeer, were stolen from the Museum. The institution turned this misfortune into an opportunity to discuss new ways of exhibiting art.

In front of the spaces left empty were exhibited framed texts, composed of testimonies by curators, guards and other staff members describing their recollections of the missing objects. Rembrandt’s The Storm, for example, was replaced by words such as ‘it’s a very green picture, but it’s also very gold...it was my favourite... This painting faced an earlier Rembrandt self portrait...That was a very aggressive painting. Very dark...It just felt like your adrenaline picked up when you looked at the picture...’. This creative improvisation, that requires very little material investment, turned a potential negative happening into an interesting new way of exhibiting art and provoking conversations about its perception by different people (Calle 2003: 401-415).

The commissioned curator/artist to execute this project was Sophie Calle, who is known for using the technique of replacing museum objects with texts about them (see similar project titled Ghosts 1989 and 1991).

Another inspiring example of curatorial improvisation is Robert Mapplethorpe’s Washington D.C. exhibition in 1989. The American photographer’s sexually-explicit photographs were due to be exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery, but the show got cancelled at the

11_

how to do things with curatorship last moment to avoid a public conflict with the conservatives, who then threatened to defund the national funding for the arts (NEA).

In response the Coalition of Washington Artists (a group of artists, dealers and patrons) organized an alternative exhibition: a public screening of Mapplethorpe’s images on the exterior of the Corcoran Gallery. The police estimated that 700 participants turned out at the event (Aagerstoun 2004: 23, 272; Gamarekian 1989). This act of improvisation forced the change of the exhibiting space, format, audience and mainly – the purpose. What was planned as an exhibition turned into a protest.

In my personal curatorial experience I encountered the need to improvise from the beginning. Two days before the opening of my OBS Academy of Inspiration Officers project, I had three speakers and one host cancelling on me for various reasons. I committed to my supervisors, my partner Zime Keswa and myself to start the project on the 18th of September 2013, and I decided despite the massive cancelation wave to go on with the opening. My partner Keswa and I talked and improvised the following: we will do what academies do - an Orientation Day. We embraced the fact that we have no speakers or not even a host to work with on the opening night, and decided to activate the audience and to get to know their reaction to the idea of the Academy.

This way we could still progress with the project and make something out of the evening. With a big brown pattern-making

_12

step #4 : ENJOY IT paper with hand-made logo of the Academy on it we created a free expression corner on the reception table in the future lecture hall (my living room). We left crayons and pens on the paper to invite people to express themselves. Also on the reception table we placed a registration list where guests wrote their contacts and interests for future lectures (by the second week 14 people have enlisted). By the logo was hanging a Q & A sheet that tells about the idea. The result was creating a buzz about next week’s event, and practicing improvisation – not giving up to circumstances, what could have effected badly on our moral.

THE OBS ACADEMY OF INSPIRATION OFFICERS (2013) REGISTRATION CORNER

13_

how to do things with curatorship IMBRACE FAILURES AS WELL There is even curatorial improvisation that can be learned from failure. The way Romanian artist Sebastian Moldovan embraced the failure of his original plan for the Dreamcatcher (2011) exhibition at the Contemporary art gallery of Sibiu can serve as an inspiring example. Moldovan’s Rainbow machine was supposed to be one of the installations in the gallery space. The installation was based on splitting light into colours through droplets of water that create an indoor rainbow machine. The viewer would trigger the sensor which starts the light and pump. It was a ‘ready made’ piece planned to use a compressor, plastic barrel, spray nozzles, spotlight, motion sensor, electric water valve and silicone tubing. But then he did not finish the work on time for the exhibition.

Moldovan decided to draw the blueprint of the installation on the blue wall left from the previous exhibition and put all the components on the floor as a sign of surrender. The pieces were set on the floor according to their colour, so that they would form a reference to a rainbow at the level of the floor. That was artist’s invitation for somebody else to build his dream rainbow machine. “For the first time I had to accept failure “on stage”, so to speak. I must say I was glad to do it, as I have waited a long time for the chance… And what a liberation it was! It was the turning point in the way I relate to my works’ recalled Moldovan in an interview two years later (Szalai 2013: 26-29).

_14

step #4 : ENJOY IT

DEBASTIAN MOLDOVAN. RAINBOW MACHINE (2011)

As an independent curator who experiments with new ways of communicating, you should be aware of the possibility of a failure. As writer Carolee Thea said to Rirkrit Tiravanija when he told in an interview about his experience with two ambitious curatorial projects that got cancelled after running into political problems: ‘Perhaps your success lies in your courage to take on challenging projects and to actively question the roles that the artist/curator plays in society’ (Thea 2009: 83-85).

15_

how to do things with curatorship NOTES :

_16

HOW TO DO THINGS WITH CURATORSHIP SELF-HELP HANDBOOK FOR SOCIALY ENGAGED CURATORS

By Valeria Geselev Hounours In Curatorship Michaelis School Of Fine Art University Of Cape Town 2013

#4