What to read for art curators: books on curating for beginners

Who is an art curator in the modern art world? How did art curators appear and how has their role changed in museum and gallery institutions? What curatorial principles are changing the modern museum and art market? What is the step-by-step plan for organizing an art exhibition? You will find answers to these and other questions in the selection of popular books about curation from the magazine TheStatusSymbol.com
4 books from the selection TheStatusSymbol.com will allow you to understand the basic principles of modern curation and become familiar with the history of curatorial practice.
"Curator's Guide"
Author: Adrian George

The book “The Curator's Handbook” by the famous British curator, Deputy Director of Government Art Collections Adrian George is a real encyclopedia of the profession. “Today the word “curator” is understood more widely than ever before. This is usually the name for someone who selects and interprets works of art shown in exhibitions, but a modern curator sometimes also plans and organizes exhibitions, commissions works for them and manages the entire process of preparation,” George begins the book. In the afterword, the author expands the boundaries of modern curation to the curation of social network content and the curation of virtual and online galleries.
In the book, the author answers questions about the essence of the curator's profession and explains in detail how to organize an exhibition. George gives ideas to the curators and a detailed plan for the exhibition: from idea to implementation, how and where to send an application, how to negotiate with venues, how to find sponsors and convince them to cooperate, talks about the legal formalities of organizing an exhibition, publications and souvenirs, installation, press show and vernissage...
"Against curation"
Author: Stefan Heidenreich
Text in English on the author's official website
http://www.stefanheidenreich.de/against-curating/
Translation of Heidenreich's text into Russian on TheStatusSymbol.com
https://thestatussymbol.com/manifest_protiv_kuratorstva/

German author and researcher Stefan Heidenreich's article "Against Curation" was first published in German in Die Zeit in July 2017. In an era when the curator is already an obligatory atom of the art world, Heidenreich opposes curatorial practice, and his arguments are not without meaning. “The supervision is undemocratic, authoritarian, opaque and corrupt. Without explanation, without discussion, curators choose artists and decide where, how and what to exhibit. How is it that in the art world, where so much emphasis is placed on freedom, all the power is concentrated in the hands of these exhibition autocrats?” – Already at the beginning of the manifesto, Heidenreich poses the question head-on.
Chatsky’s word in the monologue “Who are the judges?...”, Heidenreich accuses modern curation of opacity and autocracy: “Instead of publicly discussing the selection and criteria, the lists of selected artists are treated as a state secret. Moreover, mediation is considered the most pressing issue for curators. It's no surprise that if authoritarian rulers want to present their solutions to the people, mediation is where the loose ends are tied. This is the main problem, how can a largely uninformed public be persuaded to accept the undoubtedly good intentions of a despot? Of course, only through mediation.”
“The destiny of the curator. The concept of the museum from the French Revolution to the present day"
Author: Karsten Schubert

The activities of curators have long been associated specifically with museums, so in his book the author traces the history of Western European museums and their reception from the end of the 18th century to the present. Beyond the history of museum practice, German gallerist and writer Carsten Schubert considers the changing functions of the curator throughout the history of museums.
In his work, Schubert offers warnings about the current practice of reinterpretation and reorganization of exhibition, as well as about the role of the curator in revising history: “The modern curator has not capitulated, as is often thought, but rather has changed the rules of the game to make assumptions even more obvious. Postmodernism, together with the inevitable need for the end of the century to take stock and rewrite history, gave rise to an atmosphere of unprecedented museum relativism.” In the final chapters, Schubert assesses the current state of curating. In the second half of the 20th – early 21st centuries, the figure of the viewer became entrenched at the center of museum practice: the greater the museum’s attendance, the more significant its funding. Such expansion is dangerous, since curators will be forced to poke at the interests of the audience, deal with issues of management, fundraising and expansion to the detriment of curatorial and scientific work. The current results of the revision of the defining principles of the old museum and curatorial practice presented by Schubert are deplorable: “Chronology will be replaced by renewal, memory by amnesia, the original by a copy, order by chaos. Specialization will be replaced by dispersion, history will be sacrificed to novelty. Preservation will give way to circulation, sensation and entertainment will prevail over contemplation and experience.”
"A Brief History of Curation"
Author: Hans Ulrich Obrist

A Brief History of Curating by the influential Swiss curator and critic Hans Ulrich Obrist is perhaps one of the most iconic books on contemporary Western European curating. The publication brings together interviews with famous curators of the 20th century, who created the profession of curator, shaped the curatorship of the 20th – 21st centuries and exhibition practices of the modern Western world. Curators interviewed include Walter Hopps, Pontus Hultén, Johannes Cladders, Jan Leering, Harald Szeemann, Franz Meyer, Seth Siegelaub, Werner Hofmann, Walter Zanini, Anne d'Harnoncourt, Lucy Lippard.