Monday, October 1. 2007
Pick 'N Mix - October 2007
Welcome to the October edition of Pick 'N Mix, my monthly annotated list of bite-sized items that have captured my attention recently.
- The "five questions" format for an interview seems to be as popular as ever. Here are two that have caught my eye: five questions for Matthew Higgs, guest curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit, and five questions for Ou Ning, founding curator of the Get It Louder exhibition, a four-city showcase that explores the increasingly blurry line between art and design in China.
- This little morsel is stretching the mandate of this blog a little, but I thought I'd include it here anyway: William Gibson, godfather of cyberspace, recently (and very briefly) mused in an interview on the idea of "curating" via eBay. As Gibson says: "Every hair is being numbered -- eBay has every grain of sand. eBay is serving this very, very powerful function which nobody ever intended for it. eBay in the hands of humanity is sorting every last Dick Tracy wrist radio cereal premium sticker that ever existed. It's like some sort of vast unconscious curatorial movement." The interview is available on the Washington Post website. (via ExhibiTricks)
- This UNESCO position paper gives a good overview on how the role of the museum in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage was considered at the expert meeting that took place in 2004. The paper deals with this subject in very plain English and raises some very interesting points. One of the most thought-provoking segments for me was this bit:
Museums are already, in this sense, involved with living heritage: collections that look dead to us in their depots and showcases may be very much alive to descendents widely separated in space and time from this material and conventional ways of dealing with it. And here is a conundrum: if the dead collections in museums (dead, anyway, except to the few who can lay hands on them!) can 'come alive' under certain circumstances, can currently âliving cultural heritageâ die (inadvertently) if it is musealised in a certain way? What does it mean to speak of âsafeguardingâ living heritage when the outcome of musealisation is so unpredictable?
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"How Many More Curators Will Leave the Trade?" cries the headline at the Art Newspaper. The article discusses a perceived "brain drain" from the curatorial roles at museums, because of low salaries and increasing pressure to fundraise and deliver outside of job descriptions. True or false? Read the article, and you be the judge.This article is no longer available, because the Art Newspaper keeps their archived articles for paying subscribers only. It appears that even an abstract of the article is unavailable without paying - how disappointing.
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Recent Comments
Mon, 29.10.2007 11:01
Hi Alissa, I realise that thi s internship is from last fall , however the position is some thing which sparked my interes t. I am a third year Queen's U niversity art history student, from Toronto [...]
Mon, 22.10.2007 09:02
I dropped off a package regard ing a show I curated, "Through the Night Softly" I will come by a drop off a s.a.s.e. befo re I leave aginn for Vienna th is Thursday the 25TH.
Sun, 21.10.2007 05:56
Actually I find that in most c ases in the art world, not mu ch is "open and transparent" a nd it becomes more arcane the higher up you go. I like the post by Niels Van Tomme, who m akes some poin [...]
Sun, 14.10.2007 20:59
Absolutely! As her sister and co-artist to several of the p rojects she has done. She is one on her own and from nothin g makes new and wonderful crea tives experiences to evolve.
Sun, 14.10.2007 20:58
I can vouch the dedication of Gaynor. She has given many op portunities, including myself to work along side to help my research in my practice. This is a woman and artist wit h so much visi [...]
Mon, 01.10.2007 07:48
To continue to stretch things a bit...Maybe you would be int erested in the book _Everyday eBay: culture, collecting, and desire_. It's an anthology an d many of the essays touch on issues germane [...]
Sat, 01.09.2007 03:02
GRUPPO SINESTETICO (Albertin , Sassu , Scordo) artists Itali an POSSIBLE PARTECIPATION I N SCAPE BIENNIAL ? thanks f or your reponse sassu X Grup po Sinestetico www.grupposine stetico.it
Sat, 21.04.2007 18:28
sheesh, i've broken more than one of those tips!
Sat, 21.04.2007 06:55
That's very true! Do it yourse lf, don't wait for someone els e to do it for you.... exactly what prompted Yael to start t he Upgrade!.
Tue, 17.04.2007 12:23
In part this is the very motiv e of Upgrade, isn't it?
Sat, 07.04.2007 06:40
That collection of youtube lin ks is pretty mixed up. I don't know if youv'e had time but y ou can get Dan Graham 17 yrs h itting his little sister in fr ont of the tv. There are alot of Dan Grahams [...]
Mon, 19.02.2007 12:04
I love Ideas, and have become a heavy listener to Ideas podc asts over the last few months. When I was in Toronto a co uple of weeks ago (InterAccess show) I got interviewed by No ra Young who i [...]
Wed, 07.02.2007 17:47
Howdy! Thanks Tons!
Wed, 03.01.2007 15:15
hi Anu, I can't agree more. W hile it is always a pleasure t o witness how up-and-comers ov ercome roadblocks in innovativ e ways, and enjoy the fruits o f their efforts, we must also ask ourselves [...]
Wed, 03.01.2007 14:29
Though I am always pleased to see independent curators get s ome press, I wonder if the ver y real problem of compensation is addressed. There are alway s opportunities to make great shows if you c [...]