Curating.info

- Where Scotland's cultural leaders are raising the economic argument for arts funding, Tiffany Jenkins charges a "philistine approach that misses the value and point of culture."

- The Globe and Mail has published a great overview of idiosyncratic collector/curator Ydessa Hendeles, whose Art Foundation has closed after 25 years

- Artist Nicholas O’Brien and Ian Aleksander Adams (among others) have entered into a useful—if heated—discussion on Facebook regarding “cultural programming by using tumblr.” in response to Internet Archive's open call for “tumblr residencies.”

- New York's Center for Curatorial Leadership is expanding their programme after a $4 million boost.

- The Vancouver Art Gallery, along with other North American museums, is "Bulldozing great architecture in the name of housing great art."

- Curator Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez highlights some of the issues at stake in the Guggenheim Foundation's transnational curatorial endeavours for their UBS MAP Global Art Initiative. Legaspi-Ramirez: “perhaps some collateral pleasure could come out of opening up to more than just tokenistic multiplicity and requisite pleasantries.”

- Julia Halperin has visited the Dallas Museum of Art and recognized a trend in American museums toward membership reform, free entrance, and guards clad in "laid back khaki pants and button-down shirts."

- Caitlin Jones elaborates on the place of expanded cinema and Internet art in the history of contemporary art: Conceptual Blind Spots, Mousse Magazine.

- Whitney Museum photography curator Elisabeth Sussman talks about her curatorial process with iD Magazine: “Some curators work from books and articles that have been written about the artist. I don’t like to do that. If the artist is alive I really would like to learn from them.”

- Germano Celant is re-staging Harald Szeemann's seminal 1969 exhibition 'Live in Your Head. When Attitudes Become Form' for the Fondazione Prada in Venice.

- [Jerry] Saltz on the Death of the Gallery Show: “There used to be shared story lines of contemporary art: the way artists developed, exchanged ideas, caromed off each other’s work, engaged with their critics. Now no one knows the narrative; the thread has been lost.”

- In a similar vein, critic Blake Gopnik takes on museums for the Art Newspaper: “The quaint old notion of the museum as a haven for the contemplation of the art it owns has given way to the museum as a cog in the exhibition-industrial complex”

- Meanwhile, museums are Looking for Ways to Groom Repeat Visitors, with free-admission, entertainment strategies, and 'frequent-flier' credits.

- Former Tate curator Emma Dexter interviewed about her movement into 'the world of private galleries': “there's so little bureaucracy in commercial galleries.”

- Review of Paul O Neill's 'The Culture of Curating and the Curating of Culture(s)' (MIT Press, 2012) at the Brooklyn Rail.

- Review from November's Curatorial Knowledge Forum held at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi, Pakistan.

- Artists, curators and advocates Deirdre Logue and Allyson Mitchell present their Feminist Art Gallery (FAG) These self-identified “feral curators” avoid formal funding structures, focus on feminist and queer cultural production, and “approach curating from an activist position.”

- We are thrilled to announce the winner of the Musée Imaginaire Concours – the juried competition organized by curating.info and KAPSUL: Antonella Croci and Federico Florian’s I CLOSE MY EYES IN ORDER TO SEE has been awarded both Jury's Choice and Crowd Favorite. Visit KAPSUL to view all submissions to the competition.

- Flexible working: why the arts and culture sector doesn't get it yet, Claire Hodgson for the Guardian: “for a "creative" industry such as the culture sector, we have very uncreative workplaces…Our current culture promotes underpaid and overworked staff, relying on our passion for what we do.”

- The Way We Share: Transparency in Curatorial Practice. An essay by Lindsay Howard for Hyperallergic’s ‘Tumblr Art Sumposium’:
“We’ve heard the argument that everyone’s a curator online by means of blogging and reblogging, but what about the professional curators who are responsible for producing major physical exhibitions — how are they using social platforms? The ability to publicly explore new theories, archive research, and participate in creative communities, has signaled a new era of openness and transparency in curatorial practice.”

- Rhetoric of the Image: Julian Stallabrass gives a critical review of two new curatorial books: The Culture of Curating and the Curating of Culture(s), by Paul O’Neill, and Terry Smith’s Thinking Contemporary Curating. Both apparently uphold the "quasi-theoretical language… vacuous generalizations… [and] the illusion of coherence" within "curatorial rhetoric."

- The Art of the Artist Interview: Ross Simonini on Hans Ulrich Obrist's Interview Project.

- The best US exhibitions of 2012 have been voted on by over 400 professionals of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA).
Artfagcity is not impressed.

- HOST AND AMBASSADOR: a conversation with curator Yasmil Raymond at #OpenCurating, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona:
“I don’t think artists need to be curated, I think artists need to be supported, enabled.”

- With the opening of his feature exhibitions at the Venice Biennial around the corner, Massimiliano Gioni states: "I Felt the Need to Do Something Unusual." Other curators react.

- The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg is to house the 2014 Manifesta Biennial. The curator, to be named this month, will face the city's notoriously conservative climate, including its ban on 'homosexual propaganda.'
An educational programme in the city has recently felt the brunt of this climate.

- ARTnews' Ann Landi offers a survey of flip-flopping amongst art critics: Split Decisions: When Critics Change Their Minds.

- Marian Godfrey has penned a personal and heartfelt manifesto for arts administrators in the latest GIA Reader: Only Connect the Prose and the Passion:
“Our institutional syntax, our claims for accountability and results, and our bland generalizations about “the arts” and their benefits to society leach pleasure from our work.”

- Tucson Pima Arts Council director Roberto Bedoya responds to recent discourse concerning audience diversity and Whiteness in American cultural policy. ArtsJournal.

- Check out the Met's 82nd & Fifth web-series, featuring 100 objects profiled by the museum's curatorial staff throughout the next year. The project recalls BBC's A History of the World in 100 Objects, and the Met's own Connections series.
Also, Google has launched its Art Talks video series, which promises discourse from curators of major international museums.

- W.A.G.E. (Working Arts and the Greater Economy) has created an “infomercial-dramedy” in response to remarks made by dOCUMENTA (13) curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev about her decision to not pay the artists represented in the mega-exhibition.

- With the centennial Armory Show a couple weeks away, NPR recalls the 'Armory Show' That Shocked America In 1913.

- Afterall has posted video documentation from its 'Artist as Curator' symposium

- Hope for the future of art foundations in Creative Capital director Sean Elwood's Modest Proposal.

- In a peculiar public programming decision, Vienna's Leopold Museum invites nudists to visit their
Nackte Männer exhibition.

- The Getty Research Institute has acquired Harold Szeemann's archive, and produced this great overview of the collection: A Closer Look: Being Harold Szeemann.

- Issue 16 of web-journal On-Curating is out: Precarious Labour in the Field of Art.

- Hyperallergic has brought to light a study that finds American non-profits „suck at fundraising.“
- Another report mentioned in the post's comments: 3 Factors Impacting Nonprofit Fundraising Confidence.

- An amusing article from the Independent: Why it's time for galleries to dump the jargon.

- Artsy interviewed Rhizome Program Director Zoë Salditch for their 'Five Questions For' series.

- Amid the economic crisis, the Brazilian Government has announced its workers will receive a 50-real (€19; £16; $US25) monthly stipend for “cultural expenses,” The Art Daily reports.
- On a related note, the Vancouver Observer defends a local music venue, and speaks to the return value of government investment in arts and culture: M-O-N-E-Y: Why government investment in culture pays off.
- Similarly, Michigan Is Finding That the Arts Is a Growth Industry, Even During the Recession: “every $1 invested in the arts in the Great Lakes State yields $51 for the state’s economy.”

- Finally, we're saying goodbye to Agnes Gryczkowska, Charu Maithani and Sophia Zhou, who have been pivotal in bringing curating.info's services to you over the past six months. We're thrilled to bring in three new members of the editorial team: Luminița Apostu, Leela Clarke and Sofia Landström.

- Frieze’s Sam Thorne reviews three new books on curating: Pamela M. Lee’s Forgetting the Art World (MIT, 2012), Paul O’Neill’s The Culture of Curating and the Curating of Culture(s) (MIT, 2012) and Terry Smith’s Thinking Contemporary Curating (ICI, 2012).

- The Natural History Museum of London’s director Michael Dixon on free admission policy and mixed-funding models in his keynote address at the 2012 European Museum Advisors Conference.

- “Can criticism be fostered in a way that makes it accessible to interested readers while allowing writers to make a living?”
The Incredible Shrinking Art Critic by Eleanor Heartney for the Brooklyn Rail.

- Also, Linda Nochlin lectures on ‘Art Criticism and its Enemies: Art Criticism and its Would-be Friends’ at The New School.

- and Jonathan Jones’ ‘Art criticism has become too fawning’: “So where's our Robert Hughes?”

- Three new interviews have been published at 4Humanities with curators Ela Kagel, Pavel Sedlák, and Curating.info’s own Michelle Kasprzak.

- Also, check out our latest edition of Curating.info Conversations: Arriving at the Beginning: Interview with Cydney Payton by Lauren O’Connell.

- Only one week is left to apply for our Musée Imaginaire concours hosted by KAPSUL. Top prize of US$1000!

- Peter Schjeldahl on art criticism: “Can we speak sensibly about what we like about art?” ‘Of Ourselves and of Our Origins: Subjects of Art.’

- ‘Have you digitally interfaced with your art museum lately?’ asks Christopher Night, after a Pew Internet survey on US museum public-programming was released this week.

- Julia Halperin of Art+Auction: ‘As the Battle for the Online Art World Sharpens, How the Players Are Adapting.’ On the varied business models of the ‘net’s top art initiatives: Exhibition A, Art.sy, 1stdibs, Paddle8, 20x200, Artspace and VIP Art.

- There is a new association for curators in Quebec, Canada, soon to have a call for papers: ACAQ.

- This past October PAARC, Fillip, and ARCA organized the terrific Institutions by Artists conference, the entirety of which has been recorded and made available online. Highlights include presentations by Julia Bryan-Wilson, Jeff Derksen, Deirdre Logue, and both of the nightly Oxford-style debates.

- Three weeks are left in our Musée Imaginaire concours in collaboration with KAPSUL. Top prize of US$1000!

- This week we made the very exciting announcement of our Musée Imaginaire concours in collaboration with KAPSUL.

- 'What's (Really) Specific about New Media Art? Curating in the Information Age'
Domenico Quaranta asks: “does new media art require a specific curatorial model?... Are we curating “new media” or curating “art”?”

- Roberta Smith on art fairs, strained galleries, and the “top-heavy spaceship” of high-art-commodity: ‘Art Fairs, Full of Bling if Not Fire’

- The Guardian’s Yasmin Khan: ‘Museums in the information age: survival of the most digital?’

- Gallerist NY: “Multiple-curator biennials are really having a moment! This year’s just-closed Gwangju Biennale had six artistic directors. Next year’s Whitney Biennial will have three. The upcoming Carnegie has three. And now the 2013 Texas Biennial will apparently have no fewer than 13”

- A highly entertaining research paper by Alix Rule and David Levine for Triple Canopy: 'International Art English'

- Some Bests of 2012:
Best exhibitions:
Holland Cotter in New York,
Christopher Knight in LA ,
the Guardian’s writers in Britain and beyond,
also Chicago, Glasgow, Philadelphia,
and the best worldwide from ArtForum Slant and GalleristNY.

Also,
the Biggest Art Controversies,
5 Art Trends from Hyperallergic,
the 10 highest auction prices,
Frieze's 'cheerful' picks of 2012's best exhibitions, people and institutions,
and Art and Auction’s Power 100 list, with Art Fag City’s supplement: Auction Power Hair.

- We’re still taking applications for the curating.info internship! Apply before Jan 7, 2013.

KAPSUL is a platform and tool for curatorial work. KAPSUL allows you to collect and arrange images, text, and video into distinct units, as a way of organizing your thoughts and making your concepts more clear and coherent. With an embedded art-relevant search engine (compare your results to unvarnished Googling to see the difference), KAPSUL provides two key curatorial tools: a means to search for relevant things, and then a way to collect, organize, and share them (or keep them to yourself!). We've used KAPSUL ourselves on shows we are working on to organize research and foster dialogue within curatorial teams.

In collaboration with KAPSUL, we’re launching the Musée Imaginaire concours. The contest invites you to develop your own ‘kapsul’ for online exhibition, and a chance at a $1000 US prize. A jury of internationally recognized curators is eager to see who will best utilize the platform to create innovative curatorial propositions. Honorary mentions will be made for crowd favorites.

Read more about the contest here.
Deadline for submissions is January 29 2013, and participation in contest is free.
Sign up and get started here: Kapsul.org

- The Wall Street Journal’s Terry Teachout warns that recent trends in “cultural democratization” may come at the expense of curatorial expertise: ‘Kid Stuff at the Clark Art Institute’

- ‘Curator: A Slippery Word - an interview with Darren Jones’ at Artslant Says Jones: “Flagrant corruption of the word ‘curate’ is a trend that shows no sign of slackening. This semantic sin is perpetrated in a misguided attempt to intellectualize or glamorize often prosaic activities or professions, while trying to bestow upon them the aspirational glow of cultural elevation.”

Recalls the 2008 essay from Curating.info’s own Michelle Kasprzak: ‘For What and For Whom?’

- Hong Kong design curator Aric Chen on developing non-Western curatorial models at the new M+ museum.

- “At [Los Angeles] area art museums, the job of chief curator appears to be edging toward the endangered species list.”'Are curators a vanishing breed?' Christopher Knight, LA Times.

- Saatchi, Hickey, the super-rich and 'A sad reflection on the art world' from Julian Stallabrass.

- Good find: an interview with curator Charles Esche by Jelena Vesic from 2005:
“I am absolutely certain that we have to conquer and change the existing contemporary art institutions rather than invent our own.”

- Finally, we're expanding the Curating.info family! Apply for the curating.info internship before Jan 7, 2013.

- An allegation from James Cuno: “Scholars, curators and conservators of art are not exploiting the new technology to research differently.”
How art history is failing at the Internet

- Ben Davis on the “cringe-worthy statistics” of ethnic and cultural diversity in American museum-attendance. Diversify or Die: Why the Art World Needs to Keep Up With Our Changing Society.

- Gallery in Your Pocket: An interview with Chiara Passa of Widget Art Gallery.

- Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History director Nina Simon gives a bubbly presentation on public programming and ‘social objects’ in a TEDx talk: “Thoughout our country [USA] people are more culturally engaged than ever, but they are choosing to have those experiences outside of traditional cultural institutions."

- Great paper from Karen Gaskill from last year’s ISEA:
Curatorial cultures: considering dynamic curatorial practice

- Love this find from Artinfo: Museum Visitors Meet Their Doubles: “This week a man visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a woman at the Metropolitan Museum both came across uncanny likenesses of themselves in the institutions' collections”: Philly.com, BuzzFeed

- Suhail Malik has solicited some intriguing feedback for his Survey on Gender Ratios in Curating Programs for CCS Bard.

-The eccentric collector/curator Ydessa Hendeles is closing her space in Toronto. Coverage from the Globe and Mail.

-From Greek Sculptures to Graffiti – Michael Bird's '100 Ideas that Changed Art' reviewed at the Atlantic.

-Chen Tamir’s top five ‘Hit List’ at Akimbo.

- Project 35 has assembled 35 video-works selected by as many curators, in an ambitious international project by Dakar’s Raw Material Company and Independent Curators International.

- In an article for the New York Times, Dorothy Spears muses on the changing dynamics of the commercial gallery in relation to the museum: “dealers this season are assuming a role once deemed the exclusive right of museums…”

- ArtReview’s Power 100 list-topper Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev gets knocked for her "battiness" over at Art Fag City.
Also, a review of the Power 100 at the Guardian.

- Saatchi Online's 100 Curators, 100 Days is coming to a close.
The project claims to be the “largest online art exhibition” ever, and includes only “emerging” artists who have profiles on Saatchi's site.

- Sarah Thornton (of Seven Days in the Art World) is quitting art-market journalism, and has given TAR magazine ten reasons why. PDF: Top 10 reasons NOT to write about the art market.

- Around the corner: Collecting and Presenting Born-Digital Art: A working conference organized by Baltan Laboratories in collaboration with the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 14 – 15 December 2012.
Check out the conference’s terrific tumblr.

- Quote of the week: “every time someone uses the word “curation” in reference to content and publishing, an actual museum curator kills a kitten.” Maria Popova . Spotted at Curating the Curators.