Curating.info

- First, welcome to the new members of the Editorial Team: Mariana Aguirre, Agnes Gryczkowska, Charu Maithani, and Sophia Zhou! You can read all about them here.

- After more than two decades, Paul Schimmel is no longer chief curator at L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art. In the wake of this, there have been several resignations from the Museum's Board and much commentary, most of it excoriating Museum Director Jeffrey Dietch. One of the best summaries of the situation was written by Roberta Smith at the New York Times. A notable thread emerging in the conversation is the intention not to replace Schimmel but to rely on freelance curators (which seems to mirror moves in the global economy in general -- as just one example, more and more often in academia, instructors are brought on as sessional with little or no hope of ever achieving tenure.) This is explored in Ms Smith's article as well as in an article entitled Paul Schimmel leaves, or is fired, from MOCA: "Longtime gallery owner Louis Stern said there’s a trend that’s affecting all art institutions: the independent curator that packages an art show and shops it around to museums. "It’s cheaper in [the] sense that you don’t have to depend upon a full-time curator to go after creating these types of shows to bring to the museum," he said." Cheaper, but certainly with long term consequences.

- For the curators/archivists among us: Suzanne Fischer wrote an article entitled: "Nota Bene: If You 'Discover' Something in an Archive, It's Not a Discovery" and Helena Iles Papaioannou wrote a retort: "Actually, Yes, It Is a Discovery If You Find Something in an Archive That No One Knew Was There". Interesting debate.

- Clare Lawton asks "Can/Should Anyone Curate an Art Exhibition?", with many respondents commenting mostly on the dilution of the word "curator". Related: Sharon Heal writes on the Museums Journal blog about the proposition to get more museum visitors doing the curating and the reaction this garners: "Although nobody on the top table mentioned getting rid of curators, speaker after speaker from the floor jumped to the defence of the role."

- Lastly, something fun: The role of Crayola Crayons in the history of color: "The crayola-fication of the world: How we gave colors names, and it messed with our brains (Part I)". Enjoy summer!

Freelance curators enjoy a degree of flexibility in their work, but are often also in precarious positions when working with large organisations. A clear example of the difficulties faced by curators working in a freelance capacity emerged last week when the Koffler Centre of the Arts in Toronto issued a statement saying they were "disassociating" from artist Reena Katz, that they had commissioned through curator Kim Simon.

According to the statement, the core of the issue for the Koffler Centre, which is an agency of the United Jewish Appeal Foundation of Greater Toronto, is that artist Reena Katz publicly supports activities which reject "... the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state and promotes historically inaccurate comparisons between contemporary Israel and apartheid South Africa, in order to delegitimize Israel." The artist and curator dispute this interpretation of Katz's views.

The project has been under development for over a year and its launch is imminent. As the statement from the curator and artist put it, "...twelve days before the scheduled opening of a project involving over seventy participants, we attended the meeting. We were shocked to learn that the Koffler would be dissociating itself from Katz and our project solely on the basis of her political affiliations they said they had discovered on the Internet." That the organisation would choose to 'disassociate' itself at the eleventh hour is already indicative of a lack of professionalism, and the situation becomes even more perplexing once it is further noted that it is Katz's publcly-stated views that are the issue here, not the content of the commissioned project, which in fact uses Jewish culture as its bedrock and inspiration. The fact that Katz's views were uncovered on the web adds a twist to the tale as well (though again this is disputed by the curator and artist, who contend that the Koffler was aware of Katz's political leanings all along). The fact is that with the advent of web 2.0 and push-button web authoring, any artist or curator can make their views known on anything at any time, offering an unprecedented window on the ongoing fluidity of thought and personal opinion. The fact that this is essentially about Katz's personal digital traces underlines how unfortunate this turn of events has been, wherein an art centre would consider anything other than the work its business. The work, in effect, has been delegitimised here, subjugated to an attempt to pin down whether or not this artist's thoughts permit her to be legitimised by an established institution.

What can a freelance curator do in such a situation? Simon has stated that she is "appalled and heartbroken", and rightfully so. Without co-operation, courage, and support from within the organisation that was to present this work, the curator who is external to this structure has few options. Simon is doing all that she can to ensure that the show goes on, but the sudden lack of support from a well-resourced and branded institution is without a doubt an unwelcome and unhelpful development, that also then becomes a public example which might further dissuade curators from working freelance with large institutions (Simon is working freelance in this case, and is also employed as a curator for Gallery TPW).

It appears that the offer to fund the project fully still stands, so that it can still go ahead, which shields the Koffler from accusations of outright censorship and also from possible litigation. This action distills the problem to the core power struggle that freelance curators and independent artists face, because it's rarely ever about the money. Funding can be obtained without the intervention of an outside institution. The Koffler took something away that is far more valuable, and that's their seal of approval. Unfortunately for them, 'disassociation' in this case denies the rights that artists have to their own views, stifles debate on the subject in the Jewish community, and separates itself from what will surely be a wonderful project that celebrates Jewish culture and heritage in a historical district of Toronto.

Links:

Official project website: Each hand as they are called

Toronto Star story: Kensington Market exhibit stirs controversy among Jews

Globe and Mail story: Centre 'disassociates' itself from artist

Update (May 15, 2009):
Reena Katz and Kim Simon have issued a statement indicating that the exhibition will not open as it was scheduled to, due to the loss of the support of one of the project partners, following Koffler's disassociation. Katz and Simon will continue to work toward opening the exhibition at a future point in time. The latest updates are always available on the project website.