Curating.info

Happy new year! I hope your holiday was a good and restful one. I was so rested I nearly didn't get this out in time... but here it is - the latest Pick 'N Mix!

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• "Top ten" and other summary lists were thick on the ground as 2007 closed out. A few of my favourites in the art realm are New York Magazine's 2007 Culture Awards, the Guardian's Top Ten list (including a few turkeys and special awards), 2007's highlights according to the New York Times, and the top 100 cultural highlights of the year, selected by the CBC. Also, a last minute addition - check out curator Hans Ulrich Obrist's answer to the question "What have you changed your mind about?" at edge.org.
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• MC2 is a really smart project by two very interesting curators. Mark Coetzee (Miami) and Mark Clintberg (Montreal) use SMS messages to exchange information and formulate a text around art exhibitions that they saw together. Crediting writing to "MC", their shared initials, they produce probing texts on contemporary art that also question notions of authorship. The final texts are then distributed via the web on their project website.
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• I don't want to give you the impression that I am obsessed by curators producing projects in hotels, but... I couldn't resist mentioning a recent "curating contest" that took place in L'hôtel La Louisiane in Paris. Fourteen curators were each randomly assigned one room in the hotel, given a month to ponder the concept and the space, and then given ten days to mount an exhibition in that room. You can see the full list of participants and more details at the website of the gallerist who devised the contest, Olivier Robert.
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