Manifesto “Against Curation” by Stefan Heidenreich
Why do you need an art curator if the art speaks for itself? Is it really possible for the viewer to XXI Does the century need curated content when from all sides the media convinces him to be the creator of his own destiny, or is the viewer so stupid that everything needs to be explained to him? In a democratic society, can the vision of a single person replace the plurality of points of view of artists and spectators? In the era of consumer-curated information content, isn’t the figure of the curator an authoritarian anachronism? How can you curate an exhibition without specialized art historical knowledge?
In June 2017, a German critic Stefan Heidenreich published in Daily Time manifesto "Against curation", immediately translated into English and French and had a resonance in the professional environment. In an era when the figure of the curator comes to the fore in Russia, specialized programs on curating are appearing at universities; such texts promote reflection on the curated art content and make it possible to try to ensure the most honest, open and harmonious functioning of the art world. With the permission of the author, I provide below a translation of the text into Russian.
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?
The consequences of the curatorial epidemic are not limited to exhibition activities and the impact on the entire art world. For as long as curation has existed—in fact, not that long—artists have adapted to the new system of exhibition. Now they create their works in all subjects, since curators often prefer to choose a theme for an exhibition.
The result is the emergence of art objects and exhibitions “about something”. The customer-executor relationship, which had long been considered suspicious, is returning. Formally, artists are autonomous; they can do what they want. And curators can do the same. With the subtle difference that the latter decide what is to be exhibited at the exhibition and what is not.
Curators are not responsible for what they do, especially not to the public. However, as less and less money is allocated for exhibitions, galleries and collectors are coming to the rescue and making their contribution. As a result, many exhibitions are reduced to marketing activities in favor of the art market.
Where the public still pays, it is considered good form to serve the political consensus. At the very least, works of art that are “about something” have the advantage that they cannot completely turn away from the rest of the world and retreat into idle abstraction, as was the case in late modernist art. Ultimately, all this leads to a variety of major exhibitions focusing on immigrants, marginalized groups, precarious living conditions, gender relations, oppressed peoples and environmental issues. Of course, all of these topics are worthy and important, but usually the art is curated and managed, with no one other than the curator having a say in the selection. Can we take a humane and progressive stance towards the content of art to democratize the art business?
Instead of publicly discussing the selection and criteria, the lists of selected artists are treated as state secrets. 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.
Criticism with particular zeal supports the cult of curator mediation between artists and society. Otherwise, exhibition activities will not bring the desired result. The curator will not be able to influence her in any way. Once the exhibition is mounted, the curator's job is done. And since the audience has been degraded into mere objects of mediation, no one is concerned about their opinion. Without power, criticism has fallen to the level of mere decoration. In art magazines, criticism fills the pages between advertisements. Along with most theories prevalent in the field of art, its level has largely fallen to the level of glorifying the work of curators with decorative philosophical floristry.
Art historians should be aware that things may be different. Exhibiting art was not always the job of autocrats. There was a time when curators had to worry about the relatively tedious work of storing, studying and restoring objects from a museum's collection. Major exhibitions, such as the first years of Documenta's existence, served to state the state of contemporary art. Of course, the exhibitions were curated, but there were criteria. And these criteria were discussed. Since curation was thrown into the millstone of personal bias, the criteria have been erased, resulting in discussions about the acceptability of supervision.
Going back to history, in the period before 1920, people were faced with the institution of juries, mainly consisting of artists in public discussions in front of their own works of art. Important exhibitions were organized by artist societies and art clubs, such as the Sonderbund in Düsseldorf and Cologne or the Secession of Munich, Vienna and Berlin. The most productive phase of early modernism was marked by collectively curated and publicly debated exhibitions.
As modernism reached its peak and transformed from a progressive to a conservative movement, curating became fashionable. Once institutional power was taken, it had to be held by someone, and the strong had to stand at its head.
Commonly cited predecessors of curating are Alexander Dorner, who worked in Hannover during the 1920s and 1930s, and Willem Sandberg, who began working as a graphic designer at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and worked on the principles of modern curating before and after World War II. The decisive change came with Documenta in 1972, when Harald Szeemann was already basking in his own curatorial glory.
There were artists who did not miss the drama of this revolution. Daniel Buren warned that from now on this is no longer art, but exhibition exhibition, turning the curator into an artist. Robert Smithson stated even more forcefully in his essay “Cultural Imprisonment”: “Cultural imprisonment occurs when a curator imposes his own limitations on an art exhibition rather than asking the artist to set his limitations. Artists are expected to fit into these charlatan categories. Some artists imagine that they can stay afloat in this system, which in fact has already swallowed them up. “In the end, they are maintaining a cultural prison that is out of their control.”
How did so much power end up in the hands of curators? A quick look at the history of museums helps answer this question. Most were founded around 1800 with the goal of giving the new nation states a cultural identity. After the mid-XNUMXth century, these states became pure economic units. Cultural identity was left for consumption. Art collecting became increasingly concentrated in private hands, like everything else. Thus, old museums have lost the meaning of their existence. Cutting budgets forced them to limit the purchase of new art. Instead, they tackled the challenge of filling their spaces with temporary exhibitions. The curators have arrived timely.
What can replace supervision? Old museums and their collections will not return to their former functions. Artist associations have long lost their own progressive motivation. But it would be possible to revive them by giving them some power. Overall, the challenge is to create a situation in which exhibition activities can be democratized again. This entails discussions not only after but also before the exhibition to influence the situation, change and make decisions.
We need to think about how to involve a party that has been largely forgotten by the art world in decision-making. I'm not talking about the 1% of people who can afford to invest in art, but all others who are interested in art, provided that they are interesting to the art world, of course, not only by representing their life in videos, photographs and paintings, but and by transferring some of the actual decision-making power from the hands of the minority to the hands of the majority.
How can this change be made possible? This question can only be seriously asked by those who have never used social networks. Across all online platforms, people have long been accustomed to creating their own playlists, deciding who to follow, what photos to post, and what to write about. No one is satisfied with curated content anymore, but creates it themselves. Therefore, our demand for museums, artist associations and curators is to abandon curation, attract the viewer, and democratize the exhibition business!
