Why Curate?
When it began for me I was finally not at odds with the idea of curating. I say it in this way because I always thought of myself as a writer in very specific terms. But as I progressed into writing about art, I began to see that my role could expand, that I could explore ideas other than hashing them out on the blank page. I understood that the proper place for these ideas was the white cube of the gallery, and that I might contribute only a page of my ideas to participate in the esthetic experience I had developed.
You may ask, why did I not want to make a more sizable individual contribution to my exhibitions? I was wary of being criticized for switching roles, and I did not want my ambitions as a writer to overshadow either the concept or the artists involved. I wanted to speak through them a well as adding two cents of my own. The use of written language in the world of art exhibitions is suggestive and peripheral, but it should never compete with what is on display.
A good writer can eventually become a good curator because of the sensitivities he has toward his preferred subject matter and for the breadth of knowledge he can emphasize in bringing a verbalized context to the viewer's experience. But the act of writing should never be more important than the physical engagement with an art work, no matter what form it takes. As a budding curator I was overly conscious of the tendency to over-intellectualize what had to be subconsciously received, and not to reduce or retranslate the ideas of the artist into ones of my own. I could however write about my experiences, and make the ideas that were a by-product of it into fodder for curatorial themes.
I completed my Bachelor's Degree in 1994, and upon leaving college I had less that I knew I wanted to do than when I had first started. I knew that it had to be intellectually challenging and that it had to provide me with a role in the professional world. That year a interned at Artforum Magazine, where I generally did organizational work and errands, and was passed around to do whatever I could for whoever needed me. I was able to get a free press pass, and used it to attend film series at art house cinemas and cheap plays at theaters around the city. I saw amazing things, to which I never before had access.
At the same time I was engaging with the art world that I knew, and expanding my social milieu and geographical knowledge of the city and the scene. I was spending my free time seeing music and poetry readings in East Village bars, and I extended myself over the bridges to Williamsburg and Dumbo, where there were many artist-run gallery spaces, roof parties, dance concerts, and pop-up exhibitions. A spirit of independent creativity was taking place, and I started attending the galleries there and meeting as many new people as I could.
In 1996 I began writing for small magazines such as Cover and NY Soho Arts. They did not pay for writing, but I got a lot of exposure, and I could write long pieces as well. I wrote a long piece on three concurrent exhibitions by Nancy Spero, and the New Museum retrospective of Mona Hatoum. I also connected with other media sources such as C magazine out of Toronto, where I wrote about Annette Messager and On Kawara; at Zingmagazine and its demi-monde engendered by Devon Dikeou, at Flash Art, and I had my own web-based publication, Article Magazine, for two years.
In 2000 I began to curate. Writing had immersed me in a world of ideas, where I could see art works intimately, and yet language, which had always been an aid to me, also proved to be a detriment. In art writing there are so many different examples of what is good writing, and many of them are wrong. Academe is wrong, pluralism is wrong, and complexity is wrong. If I had never been a budding art critic, chances are I would never had the courage to make the leap into curating. Criticism had given me the freedom to express myself quite distinctly. From the point of understanding an art work or event verbally came an accessibility to the sphere of creative endeavor.
Also influencing me were the specific friendships that I had with artists with whom I felt we were sharing the same generational experiences, and building a milieu of our own. It wasn't so much that they supported my desire to curate, for I was very secretive about my willingness to take on a new role. But their active friendship, welcoming me into their lives, and likewise into their studios, helped me immensely. It allowed me to communicate with them at their most intimate level. This was when the seed of curating was born within me.
Writing has always been a part of who I am, but also has the variables of it, not just the activity. Writing is engagement. Whether we are talking about poetry, fiction, plays, or criticism, or just ideas and thoughts, all writing is a degree of precision. The opposite also possesses value. I go through periods of not writing. These are characteristically fallow periods, when I do not need to actively engage, but rather ponder, the seeds and roads of my life. New ideas will emerge.
You may ask, why did I not want to make a more sizable individual contribution to my exhibitions? I was wary of being criticized for switching roles, and I did not want my ambitions as a writer to overshadow either the concept or the artists involved. I wanted to speak through them a well as adding two cents of my own. The use of written language in the world of art exhibitions is suggestive and peripheral, but it should never compete with what is on display.
A good writer can eventually become a good curator because of the sensitivities he has toward his preferred subject matter and for the breadth of knowledge he can emphasize in bringing a verbalized context to the viewer's experience. But the act of writing should never be more important than the physical engagement with an art work, no matter what form it takes. As a budding curator I was overly conscious of the tendency to over-intellectualize what had to be subconsciously received, and not to reduce or retranslate the ideas of the artist into ones of my own. I could however write about my experiences, and make the ideas that were a by-product of it into fodder for curatorial themes.
I completed my Bachelor's Degree in 1994, and upon leaving college I had less that I knew I wanted to do than when I had first started. I knew that it had to be intellectually challenging and that it had to provide me with a role in the professional world. That year a interned at Artforum Magazine, where I generally did organizational work and errands, and was passed around to do whatever I could for whoever needed me. I was able to get a free press pass, and used it to attend film series at art house cinemas and cheap plays at theaters around the city. I saw amazing things, to which I never before had access.
At the same time I was engaging with the art world that I knew, and expanding my social milieu and geographical knowledge of the city and the scene. I was spending my free time seeing music and poetry readings in East Village bars, and I extended myself over the bridges to Williamsburg and Dumbo, where there were many artist-run gallery spaces, roof parties, dance concerts, and pop-up exhibitions. A spirit of independent creativity was taking place, and I started attending the galleries there and meeting as many new people as I could.
In 1996 I began writing for small magazines such as Cover and NY Soho Arts. They did not pay for writing, but I got a lot of exposure, and I could write long pieces as well. I wrote a long piece on three concurrent exhibitions by Nancy Spero, and the New Museum retrospective of Mona Hatoum. I also connected with other media sources such as C magazine out of Toronto, where I wrote about Annette Messager and On Kawara; at Zingmagazine and its demi-monde engendered by Devon Dikeou, at Flash Art, and I had my own web-based publication, Article Magazine, for two years.
In 2000 I began to curate. Writing had immersed me in a world of ideas, where I could see art works intimately, and yet language, which had always been an aid to me, also proved to be a detriment. In art writing there are so many different examples of what is good writing, and many of them are wrong. Academe is wrong, pluralism is wrong, and complexity is wrong. If I had never been a budding art critic, chances are I would never had the courage to make the leap into curating. Criticism had given me the freedom to express myself quite distinctly. From the point of understanding an art work or event verbally came an accessibility to the sphere of creative endeavor.
Also influencing me were the specific friendships that I had with artists with whom I felt we were sharing the same generational experiences, and building a milieu of our own. It wasn't so much that they supported my desire to curate, for I was very secretive about my willingness to take on a new role. But their active friendship, welcoming me into their lives, and likewise into their studios, helped me immensely. It allowed me to communicate with them at their most intimate level. This was when the seed of curating was born within me.
Writing has always been a part of who I am, but also has the variables of it, not just the activity. Writing is engagement. Whether we are talking about poetry, fiction, plays, or criticism, or just ideas and thoughts, all writing is a degree of precision. The opposite also possesses value. I go through periods of not writing. These are characteristically fallow periods, when I do not need to actively engage, but rather ponder, the seeds and roads of my life. New ideas will emerge.
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