THE CURATOR AND THE ARTWORKS' PERCEPTION

Curation is the practice of gathering and grouping artworks based on shared themes or ideas, and it is carried out by curators (Obrist, 2008). A curator is an expert who is employed to choose or put together groups of art projects or pieces of art by grouping them according to a common theme or idea. Curators are responsible for maintaining and interpreting a certain institution's cultural history, which may include a museum, archive, library, or gallery. Curators typically focus on a variety of tangible objects, such as scientific collections, artwork, historic artifacts, and collections. The role of the curator may differ based on the size of the organization, whereby in smaller organizations, curators are majorly concerned with acquiring and taking care of the collections. Conversely, in larger organizations, curators play the role of a subject specialist, whereby they are concerned with conducting the original research on an object and guiding the object’s collection process (Obrist, 2015). Curators play a crucial role in creating exhibitions, whereby they are concerned with making decisions pertaining to the objects to collect, overseeing any potential documentation on the objects, carrying out research pertaining to the collection and its history, ensuring proper packaging for the artworks for transportation purposes, and ensuring that he or she shares crucial information about a particular collection acquired through research by displaying the collections on exhibitions and publications. The role of the curator presents the debate of a curator as an auteur vs. the erasure of the curator, which examines whether a curator should be hidden from the scene or presented in the larger part of an exhibit. Auteur refers to the curator as the creative mastermind behind an exhibition, which brings about the argument of whether the curator should be made known to the audience of an exhibition or his role should be reserved behind the scenes. Given that curators are responsible for creating exhibitions, they have the ability to influence people towards a new perception on artworks. This paper examines the diverse ways through which the curator as an auteur can influence perceptions on artworks, including an examination of the differences between the curator as an auteur and the erasure of the curator.

The Curator as an Auteur and the Erasure of the Curator

According to Macleod, Hanks, and Hale (2012), the role of the curator is crucial in making the museum, given the complex, collaborative, challenging, and creative nature of the 21st-century museums. The curator’s role involves putting together exhibitions, whereby the process of creating exhibitions involves the curator’s creativity, making the process of curation a work of art in its own right. Further, the fact that the creation of exhibitions requires curators to involve their ideas and creativity makes it difficult for the curators to avoid reflecting their personality and work in the exhibitions. Therefore, from the perspective of the curator’s role, curators need to receive credit for the work they do in creating the exhibitions. For instance, curators are currently involved in reinventing the museum designs and shaping the museums to facilitate easy understanding of the cultural elements presented by the museums to the audience (Macleod, Hanks, & Hale, 2012). Although curators are not involved in creating the pieces of art, they play a crucial role in authoring exhibitions, which comprise of diverse collections of related artworks as cultural texts. Further, the curator acts as the interface between the institution or museum and the public by bringing together artworks and organizing the content and the information pertaining to the artwork in a manner that the public can easily understand and interpret the cultural ideas presented in the artworks. Additionally, curators are considered as the first interpreters of artefacts or artworks, since they conduct extensive research on the artworks and put together ideas and information regarding the artworks to facilitate easy understanding of the artworks by the audience.

Based on the role of the curator, the debate of the curator as an auteur and the erasure of the curator emerge, whereby the curator as auteur refers to the curator as an artist since curators use their creativity and ideas in creating exhibitions. The creativity applied in putting together ideas in a comprehensive manner is considered as art. Hence, exhibitions are defined as artworks in their own right, since they comprise of unique collections that curators gather and arrange to bring out relevant cultural texts, which makes it crucial for the role of the curator in creating the exhibitions to be displayed to the audience, as a way of crediting the curator’s role as an artist (Pearce, 2012). Further, a curator as auteur emerged from the rise of the blockbuster temporary exhibitions, which comprise of epic collections that have emerged from the curator’s creativity in designing epic artworks and cultural texts. Conversely, the erasure of the curator refers to the idea of retaining the curator’s role in creating exhibitions hidden behind the scenes. The view holds that artists are responsible for creating artworks and they deserve to be credited for the artworks since, without their pieces of art, curators and institutions would not be in a position to create the exhibitions. Therefore, the erasure of the curator advocates for the institutionalization of the curation process, whereby the curators play the role of employees of the given institution whose primary role is putting together artworks according to the artists’ desires or the manner in which artists prefer to their work to be displayed so that the artists can be credited for their work.

Further, the erasure of the curator focuses on the artist as a curator since artists are engaged in searching for ideas and using their creativity to develop the diverse artworks displayed in the museums and other cultural institutions. Moreover, the erasure of the curator emphasizes on the development of the public-focused museums, which are concerned with displaying and popularizing the works of different artists rather than focusing on the role that the institutions play in gathering the diverse artworks. Macdonald (2006) postulates that museums play a crucial role in institutionalizing the concept of a collection, whereby through the role of the curators, diverse objects are removed from their original contexts as single objects to the context of a collection, comprising of several similar objects. Additionally, the emergence of the artist as a celebrity and authority necessitates the erasure of the curator, since the view focuses on popularizing the work of individual artists rather than crediting the work that institutions perform in collecting the artworks. The existing conflict between the curator as auteur and the erasure of the curator that when curators are allowed to play the role of auteur artists lose their autonomy in creating and presenting their work of to the public makes it crucial for artists to work together with the curators. According to Jeffery (2015), artists and curators work together; they are likely to produce incredible exhibitions in addition to minimizing the conflicts that emerge between the curators and the artists. Further, by the curators taking the role of the collaborators helps in creating a seamless blend between curators and artists, whereby they provide artists with the appropriate advice on creating exhibitions as well as taking into consideration the artists desires and wants for the exhibitions, which often translates to great displays of artworks.

Fred Wilson and Harald Szeeman

Fred Wilson and Harald Szeeman are among the most famous curators that prioritize artwork, an element that is visible in the manner in which they curate spaces. Fred Wilson uses the museum as his palette, whereby he considers examining, questioning, and deconstructing the traditional art and artefact displays in museums, to bring new meaning to the art collections found in the museums. Fred takes the approach of changing the entire museum arrangement by putting items where the audience would least expect them to be put in order to provoke the museum visitors into rethinking history, history, and the often defined official story, indicating the importance of including the needs of the audience in the creation of exhibitions (Schubert, 2009). Further, Fred focuses on guiding museums into reexamining themselves, their roles, and their current position in the society. Fred considers introducing new elements into the museums, including the non-traditional pairing of objects, lighting, wall labels, and sounds among others in a bid to guide viewers towards rethinking about the meaning of art, history, and the art museum. Fred’s curation approach resonates with Jewitt’s (2009) idea of using technology to ensure efficiency in displaying items in cultural institutions. The use of technologies such as sound and lighting helps in bringing a new meaning to the exhibitions, which enables the audience to find several meanings to the particular pieces of art.

Additionally, Fred uses the new elements to demonstrate to the audience that changes in artistic contexts create changes in the meaning of art (Carbonell, 2012). Furthermore, Fred’s combination of evocative objects leads the audience into questioning the limitations and biases of the cultural institutions and the manner in which they define the interpretation of the artistic value and language of display and the historical truth. Fred curates space, which he considers as an installation environment by manipulating spatial relationships, objects, colour, and light in a manner that makes the audience to perceive the art displayed in a museum differently, and provoking a new meaning of art. Fred’s ability to manipulate space in cultural institutions makes him more of an artist than a curator since he is engaged in manipulating space to create a new form of art. Fred’s artistic prowess in redefining the museum and other cultural institutions is shown through his exhibitions, which include Turbulence II (2003), mining the museum exhibition, and Chandelier Mori (2003) among others (Carbonell, 2012).

On the other hand, Harald Szeeman focused on contemporary art and created a more versatile critic in the modern tradition. Szeeman also considers the element of space manipulation, which is crucial in creating unique exhibitions that are easily understood and appealing to the audience (Krajina, 2013). Szeeman is majorly concerned with interpreting and defending the artists’ projects to ensure that the audience appreciated the diverse pieces of work. Szeeman aimed at redefining the field of art by eliminating the perception of associating aesthetic objects with the wealthy. Szeeman prioritized artwork, an element demonstrated by his idea of becoming an independent curator so that he could effectively pursue his goal of redefining art and cultural institutions. Szeeman curated space by condensing the symbolic force of artworks within the exhibition spaces; hence creating exhibitions that comprised of great fantasy in demonstrating the visions of the 1960s art and rejecting the concept of art as an expression of formal values, which is the concept that museums sought to promote through the existing structures, involving the concept of great exhibitions (Marincola, 2006). Szeeman, as a curator, managed to create a crucial space that was distinct from that of other cultural institutions. As a result, he managed to create several exhibitions, including Der hang zum Gesamtkunstwerk, which reflected the total work of art and the Monte Verita exhibition, which reflected the Utopian community of Uscona among others, whereby his curation approach allowed him to interpret his time in creating exhibitions.

Fred and Szeeman’s work demonstrate the manner in which a curator as auteur can change the meaning of art. For instance, Fred’s ‘Mining the Museum’ exhibition helped in making the audience more conscious on the element of racism, which forms a crucial part of the American history. Similarly, Nunnally (2010) argues that exhibitions should be created in a manner that captures the audience’s attention towards the finer details that they may not be in a position to identify if they are presented with the objects for the first time outside the exhibition. Fred’s exhibition was created to address the biases experienced in museums, whereby they tend to omit or under-represent the oppressed groups while focusing on the ‘prominent white men.' Fred reshuffled the museum’s collection in a bid to demonstrate the history of African-Americans and Native American Marylanders (Julier, 2000). The exhibition comprised of three busts of important people, Napoleone, Henry Clay, and Andrew Jackson, and three black pedestals of three overlooked African Americans, Harriet Tubman, Benjamin Banneker, and Frederick Douglass. Similarly, Szeeman focused on the art that reflected the minority or oppressed groups, to show the social injustices existing in the societies, an element that helps the audience to perceive art from a different perspective and gain new meaning to the artworks (Burnham, 2010).

Pontus Hulten

Pontus Hulten focused on creating exhibitions that highlight every artwork in the space by redefining the museum as an open and elastic space that holds a large number of activities within its walls. Pontus worked closely with artists to create outstanding exhibitions, which reflected artworks within the space. The Centre of Pompidou has diverse collections, estimated at over 100,000 works, making the centre one of the leading centers as an art reference in the 20th and 21st centuries (McClellan, 2008). The collections found at the centre range from drawings, photography, new media, architecture, design, and visual arts among others comprising of the most recent collection and historical collections. Through the centre, one is able to discover the world’s iconic artists and the movements that led to the modern art. The work presented at the centre demonstrates the manner in which the erasure of the curator helps art to express itself in that viewers focus more on the beauty and the themes that each artwork demonstrates rather than focusing on an entire collection (Pearce, 2012). Hence, the erasure of the curator has allowed artists to become celebrities since each piece of art is associated with the creator of the piece, the artist, rather than focusing on the curator who assembles similar art collections and gains credit for unique exhibitions instead of the distinct and separate pieces of art.

Conclusion

Although the element of a curator as auteur conflicts with the erasure of the curator, whereby a curator as auteur may lead to the loss of autonomy of artists, the idea of a curator as auteur is more appropriate as since it ensures that the space assigns one meaning to all the artworks involved, unlike in the idea of the erasure of the curator, where each artwork bears a unique meaning, requiring the audience to focus on each artwork as a different entity, an element that is time-consuming and less effective in communicating cultural ideas, events, values among others. Moreover, the view of a curator as auteur plays a significant role in institutionalizing exhibitions, whereby they are responsible for collecting objects and organizing objects with similar cultural backgrounds together, an element that ensures that the audience understands the cultural themes that each exhibition and piece of art represent. Further, the idea of a curator as auteur allows artworks in exhibitions to express their own cultural meanings, while allowing the audience to relate all pieces of art with space and other artworks. Additionally, the curator as auteur allows the audience to derive more than one reason behind an artwork, as well as enabling audiences to broaden their ideas and perspectives on the pieces of artwork that the curator lays out within a space. Further, emphasizing the role of a curator as auteur plays a crucial role in defining the role of museums and other cultural institutions in creating unique exhibitions that promote a better understanding of diverse cultural concepts among the audience.



















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