Curating.info

The Korean art world is reeling from the news that of one of its up and coming curatorial stars has been exposed as having false credentials.

From the Independent:

Imagine an attractive and talented young woman who said she had an art history doctorate from Oxford. Vivacious and persuasive, she becomes the director of the Tate Gallery. Then, just after being hired to curate the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition, she is exposed as a fake who failed to get a single A-level.

This scenario, reminiscent of a Patrica Highsmith novel with its hint of The Talented Mr Ripley, is precisely the scandal now rocking the Korean art world after one of its rising stars, Shin Jeong-ah, was unveiled as a fraud.

Until this week, Shin, 35, was at the top of her profession. Claiming to have a doctorate from Yale and a master's degree from Kansas University, she was the youngest professor at Seoul's prestigious Dongguk University and the head curator of the Sungkok Art Museum, home to some of Korea's most prestigious exhibitions and the recipient of millions of pounds in corporate sponsorship from the country's biggest conglomerates.

Fabricating details on one's curriculum vitae seems to be nothing new, as a quick browse of the web led me to another recent article detailing dozens of such scandals in the business world. One particularly audacious and amusing story:

Jeffrey Papows, the former president of IBM's Lotus unit, resigned in 2000 after The Wall Street Journal found that he had embellished details of his military and academic achievements in his CV and in speeches and statements. He also claimed to be an orphan although his parents were still alive. According to the paper, he claimed to have a PhD from Pepperdine University but had in fact only completed a correspondence course at an unaccredited college. In addition, military records showed he had never been a Marine Corp aviator and captain, as he claimed, but a military air-traffic controller who rose no higher than lieutenant.

Mr Papows, who was also the subject of a sexual harassment complaint, later admitted: "I, in some senses, am guilty of exaggerating and embellishing for a purpose from a business standpoint."

Back to Ms Shin, our curator in question who never attended Yale and didn't complete her degree at Kansas University. What makes this story particularly interesting are not the fabrications, which, as evinced in the Times Online article about lying businessmen, seem to crop up quite a bit. The point of interest is that most seems to agree that Ms Shin was a good curator. Despite her complete lack of training, she seems to have performed well enough to smoke by for a long time. "She was very talented at planning exhibitions," a leading Korean art critic told the Kyunghyang Daily News. "She was not much of an art historian or a theoretician but she put on some excellent shows which were very popular. That's why the museums loved her." There are so many classic tensions in this story that the mind boggles - populist vs. academic, raw talent vs. hard-won credentials, appearances vs. reality. One tends to feel pity for everyone involved in the debacle: the museum and biennale officials who were duped, and Ms Shin herself, who - though talented - because of her misrepresentations will never eat lunch in Seoul again.

While the Pompidou tries to entice a younger generation by offering wireless internet, the hip and flashy (and, based on the rumblings of folk I know in Paris - sometimes hated) Palais de Tokyo has turned to old media to further its reach to audiences.

"France has changed, the world has changed, and we have to adapt,'' says Bruno Racine, the Pomipdou Center's 54-year-old president, in his red-walled office near the museum. "The Pompidou Center needs to renew itself, live up to the dual challenge of expanding its domestic audience and becoming a global institution.''

There is an excellent article here, that chronicles the recent troubles and triumphs of the Pompidou. The tale inevitably ends on the note of the fiscal viability of the Pompidou, with Racine saying:

"Subsidies are going to plateau,'' he says. "Clearly, we have to diversify our resources by building up visitor numbers, but also forming closer links with companies and collectors.''

Zipping on over to palaisdetokyo.com (or 13 Avenue de Président Wilson, whichever is more convenient), we see that the latest hot news item is their new magazine - yes, printed on dead trees, not on a blog or wiki! - that costs 5-7 Euros (depending on where you live) or 4.50 GBP.

Every quarter, PALAIS / outlines the expanded artistic universe of the new program and invites many contributions from diverse fields: it features images of the exhibitions presented at the Palais de Tokyo, portfolios as well as texts by art critics or philosophers, writers, footballers, artists, etc. and a "carte blanche" given to another magazine.

Throughout PALAIS / is the notion of elasticity: it pulls art toward reality and reality toward art. Are there any potential points of rupture? Where are the intersections, those unlikely places where yodeling and quantum physics meet?

It is simply an interesting study in contrasts. I would actually like to see a mash-up of these approaches - presenting the intersections where quantum physics and yodeling meet, but through a podcast, Wi-Fi portal page, or file I download from Bit Torrent. I'll be happy to see what the Pomipdou makes of dabbling in giving away Wi-Fi and other possible digital efforts, as well as what Palais de Tokyo does with the "old media" - for now.

International Curating Management Education
Dept. of the History of Art/School of Business
Stockholm University, Sweden
2007/2008

Next course starting January 2007
Application Deadline: 15th October, 2006

The International Curating Management Education at Stockholm University specialises in the combination of arts management, art history, law, and practical curatorial work in a composition that is unusual in comparison to similar courses internationally. Furthermore, the academic level of the education is in keeping with the university environment that we are a part of. We encourage applications from persons within the academic field as well as with curatorial and artistic experience.

The International Curating Management Education is a full time course programme offered by the Department of Art history and the School of Business in collaboration with the Department of Law at Stockholm University. The course faculty consists of representatives of these departments, as well as directors and curators at the Liljevalchs Konsthall and Magasin3 Stockholm Konsthall. Guest lecturers include practising artists, critics, curators and scholars practising in Sweden and internationally.

The education programme spans over a 15 month period and consists of theoretical courses, including a Master’s thesis, a ten weeks internship in Sweden or abroad, a summer workshop, and work on an exhibition project. The teaching takes many forms within the education: lectures, seminars, and supervised work both individually and in groups. Furthermore, each student has a personal tutor from the course faculty. Depending on the make up of the student group, the course is presented in either English or Swedish.

We aim at an education that encourages creativity and innovation as well as an awareness of traditions and a responsibility for museum collections. In other words, we envision a field that bridges institutional and alternative environments. We are attentive to the student’s individual focus and students are encouraged to develop their own profiles.

Upon completing the International Curating Management Education at Stockholm University, the student receives a course diploma. Students who previously hold a Bachelor’s degree fulfil the criteria for a Master’s degree.

For detailed course description, prerequisites and application directions, please refer to our web site. E-mail: curator -at- arthistory.su.se

Please note that no scholarships are offered. International students are also recommended to obtain general information for visiting students in Sweden from the University's web site.