Curating.info

The document below, being circulated by the Kamloops Art Gallery in Canada, poses some incisive questions that many cultural institutions, not just museums in small cities, are facing. Input from curators on some of these issues would greatly benefit this study. Full text follows:

Dynamic Art Museums in Small Cities
The Board of Trustees of the Kamloops Art Gallery, a not-for-profit art museum located in the interior of British Columbia in western Canada, met recently to consider its future and to address our considerable responsibilities to various communities.

The Board hopes to develop a new paradigm, an ideal model that emphasizes the compatibility of popular success, scholarship and museological responsibilities that can be used to benchmark our future outcomes and achievements. It also intends to look at the vital and critical role of the "small city gallery" within the global environment.

To these ends, our Trustees would like to know about art galleries in similar small communities with a population between 50,000 and 150,000. It is inviting museum professionals and scholars to define what constitutes a successful small city art museum. How, for example, are historical/traditional and contemporary art programming integrated? What are the inherent responsibilities that come with being recognized as a rigorous institution committed to research and scholarship? What is the potential of small art museums as learning hubs, especially given the opportunities available through the use of new technologies? And lastly, the Board is trying to determine how art museums make a difference in their own immediate and diverse communities and how success is defined in these terms.

The first part of this multi-faceted project is to compile a list of small-city art galleries world-wide that are recognized as leaders in their field. The next step is to refine this list and prepare case studies of 20 to 25 of these institutions for inclusion in a publication about the challenges and possibilities facing the small city gallery. We would appreciate receiving your opinion on the most outstanding galleries based on the objectives of the study outlined in this email. Please forward them to jlmb @ kag.bc.ca

We would also appreciate if you would take the time to forward this inquiry to your email list of colleagues in order to expand the search for outstanding art galleries in small cities. Please include your full name, title and work affiliation for reference and follow-up.

Thank you for your time.
Jann LM Bailey
Executive Director, Kamloops Art Gallery
101-465 Victoria Street, Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada V2C 2A9
t 250 3772412 / f 250 828 0662

[Via Christine Castle, on behalf of Jann Bailey. Please respond to her directly at jlmb @ kag.bc.ca. Anything posted in the comments will also be forwarded to Jann.]

I'm proud to announce the (semi-recent) launch of my latest curatorial effort.

In-Site Montreal is a collection of site-specific art presented on the portal pages of five wireless internet hotspots in the Ile Sans Fil network. Artists Nicolas Fleming, Maria Legault, and Virginie Laganiere have created art works that can be viewed simply by logging in to the Ile Sans Fil network at the selected hotspots. Though the project is best viewed in-situ, you can also view the works produced by the artists for the hotspot locations at the In-Site Montreal micro-site.

I have produced a curatorial text for the project, which I would be grateful for your feedback on, my cherished readers.

The concluding paragraphs of the essay include the following statements:

The virtual spaces that In-site Montreal inhabit are amorphous areas around several accepted gathering places such as cafes, galleries, markets, and bars. They are perhaps places where as an internet user, you may intend to use the opportunity of connectivity to the network to look outward, to read news of distant places or connect with friends far away through e-mails and online social networking sites. The art practice of telematics in particular addresses the creative possibilities when two parties are connected over distance to communicate. In some way, the pieces presented on the portal pages of Ile Sans Fil's network as part of the In-Site Montreal project present something that is almost anti-telematic, in that the works look inward rather than outward. In the case of this project, a connection to someone across the globe is not sought, it is shunned in favour of a further examination and rumination on the details of the local environment.

I'm interested in this idea of the inverse-telematic, the inward-looking, the intensely-local, especially using a tool such as Wi-Fi that we are so accustomed to associate with an outward-looking, nearly-anonymous roaming of virtual terrain.

Thanks to Year Zero One for producing the project, the Canada Council for the Arts for funding the project, Ile Sans Fil for hosting the project, and Rita Godlevskis for designing the map and visual identity of In-Site Montreal.

There is an article on the "DiY curating" scene in Seattle by Regina Hackett in a recent issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The article is fairly long and profiles a number of opportunistic young curators, who have harnessed unique venues to host their shows - ranging from the back of a truck, a local café, and a virtual island in the virtual world Second Life.

Seattle currently boasts a wealth of excellent young curators. While a few have found jobs at major arts institutions, there aren't nearly enough of these jobs to go around in a field that's booming in major urban centers everywhere.

That means curators of Van Nostrand's generation, even with solid academic records (she has a master's degree in contemporary art history from Richmond American University in London), have to make their own opportunities.

I would say this is probably a given for just about any urban center. The demand for professional positions in the creative industries will always outstrip the number of posts available. By highlighting the unusual and innovative practices of these young curators working on the fringes, the author of this article accentuates the fact that though these curators may not have top posts in museums or galleries, the exhibitions they are developing are professional grade.

"What it means to be a curator is more agile and open than it used to be," he [Fionn Meade] said. "Curatorial thinking crosses disciplines. The field benefits from what people from a range of backgrounds can contribute."

The very definition of "curator" is certainly more open than it used to be. At any rate, it will be interesting to follow the careers of these young curators and the artists they are selecting for their exhibitions. These qualities of openness and agility that they are demonstrating now will certainly be assets to them throughout their careers.

Opening tomorrow at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, Texas is a show that has been curated by the public.

"Gems of the Collection: Community as Curator" was "curated" by local residents by answering a survey that the museum had produced.

...it presents 80 exceptional artifacts — paintings, gems, minerals, textiles, furniture, gowns and one-of-a-kind objects — that have stayed in the memory banks of loyal Witte supporters.

The Witte opened in October 1926. That's a lot of memories for visitors, and some of them are plain weird — from shrunken heads to a stolen diamond. [...] It's all about nostalgia, revelation, enlightenment and wonder, according to organizers.

It's a stretch to call curating by survey curation at all. In this case I think it is more accurate to call the "community curators" selectors or respondents. Naming issues aside, since it is a celebration of the museum's 80th year of operation, it is a PR-friendly move to have a community oriented exhibition.

Read the full article, including quotes from the "community curators", here.