Curating.info

Fellowship update!
The deadline has passed, and we have numerous terrific applications for the inaugural Curating.info Fellowship. We will announce the first Fellow in December.

We're at the mid-point of the online fundraising campaign and still have a way to go towards our goal. A show of support now from the Curating.info community will make the difference in momentum that will spur others to contribute. If you have not already donated, please do so by clicking "Fuel this Project" here. Every little bit helps, and you get cool rewards too!

Spread the word about the campaign by sharing the link to the crowdfunding page on your Facebook Wall, sharing it on Google + and LinkedIn, and Tweeting about it. We've produced sample text for Facebook posts and Tweets below.
Please help us reach our fundraising goal!

Sample Tweet:
I support the inaugural Curating.info Fellowship! Show your support for this new opportunity for curators at RocketHub: http://bit.ly/oWV2G0

Sample Facebook post:
Support this great idea! The Curating.info Fellowship provides a career-changing opportunity for a curator to conduct research and produce an exhibition at the CCA in Glasgow. Contribute to their crowdfunding campaign to ensure this is a success http://rockethub.com/projects/2505-curating-info-fellowship

You can also add the above texts to Google +, and on LinkedIn.
Thanks for your support!

- In Manila, Catholic groups used intense pressure tactics to shut down an exhibition. The curator, J. Pacena III, says: "I am shocked and appalled by how our civil liberties were exploited to satiate the sensibilities of a raucous mob."

- From a report on the British Art Show by Amy Fung: "While their curatorial focus has been on selecting individual works of merit, history cannot be escaped, and motifs cannot be suppressed."

- "If they choose to work in India, young curators will need to use the opportunities provided by the private sector as there is, after all, no corresponding growth in state-run or public museums and galleries." From an interview by Natasha Ginwala with Geeta Kapur on the curatorial context in India.

- In Toronto, plans for a two-year, $420,000 contract for a curator who would choose artwork for a new public transport line have been cancelled. The argument was that the transport agency should "focus on getting the line built". Certainly, although planning how art will be integrated from the start is surely better than retrofitting it later.

- Just found this Feminism and Curating wiki. Looks like the start of a good resource.

- "Art is at a crossroads. It has exhausted its possibilities and needs to expand." - Zhang Ga, Curator of Translife exhibition at NAMOC, China

- Last but most definitely not least! You surely saw our announcement about the first Curating.info Fellowship. Download the application form here, applications are due October 21! Also please consider supporting the financing of the Fellowship with a donation to our crowdfunding campaign. Looking forward to your generous demonstrations of support and your applications for the first Fellowship!

Dear readers:
Just a couple days ago we have released information on an exciting new venture: the Curating.info Fellowship.

The Curating.info Fellowship is a paid opportunity for an individual to conduct curatorial research and produce an exhibition for the 2012 exhibition season at the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) Glasgow, a dynamic organisation in one of Europe's most culturally-vibrant cities. The Fellowship is funded partly by CCA, and partly by the Curating.info community itself through a crowdfunding campaign.

There are very few opportunities to conduct curatorial research and work on curating an exhibition with minimal creative constraints, especially for emerging and mid-career curators. While there is plenty of unpaid work out there, there is a real need for quality career opportunities that are paid and that also offer a real result: your own curated exhibition. This need was the driving force in creating the Curating.info Fellowship.

As a reader, you know that Curating.info is the leading resource for curators of contemporary art on the web, providing information and editorial content to curators free of charge since its inception in 2006. Since 2006, I have never appealed directly to the readership for any funds, simply managing and improving the site as a labour of love. With this new project, I am finally appealing for donations -- though not to run the site itself! -- but to support this great opportunity for one of your colleagues (or, if you choose to apply and you succeed -- an opportunity for yourself!)

All the funds raised through our crowdfunding campaign will go directly to paying the Fellow a professional fee, and any funds in excess of our goal will go towards next year's Fellowship. The site we are using, RocketHub, is not an investment or charity, but just a fundraising platform where supporters can help us provide this Fellowship. Supporters will get rewards ranging from acknowledgement to art publications to mixtapes to stickers, and more, depending on the level of support.

I hope you will donate to this campaign, and I hope you will apply for this opportunity as well! The CCA is a fantastic institution with a long history in Glasgow. At its centrally-located premises on Sauchiehall Street, CCA has multiple gallery spaces, a cinema, cafe/restaurant, bar, meeting/lecture spaces, and bookshop. I partnered with the CCA for this Fellowship because it is an institution I know well and trust; also it is simply an interesting place in the heart of a wonderful city and led by a visionary director, Francis McKee.

Applications for the Fellowship will be accepted until October 21 2011. Get the application pack here: http://curating.info/pages/fellowship.html

Please spread the word, donate generously, and apply to be the first Fellow!

Many thanks,
Michelle Kasprzak
Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Curating.info

Image: CCA Glasgow

Curating.info Fellowship

Curating.info is pleased to announce a new curatorial fellowship in collaboration with the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) in Glasgow. Commencing in 2012, the Curating.info Fellowship is a paid opportunity for an individual to conduct curatorial research and produce an exhibition at the CCA.

In response to the need for paid hands-on experience in curating, Curating.info Founder and Editor-in-Chief Michelle Kasprzak designed the Curating.info Fellowship as a way to facilitate this essential experience. The inaugural Fellowship will take place in partnership with Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) Glasgow, a dynamic organisation in one of Europe’s most culturally-vibrant cities. The Fellowship is funded partly by CCA, and partly by the Curating.info community itself through a crowdfunding campaign. Please donate to the campaign here: http://rockethub.com/projects/2505-curating-info-fellowship.

The Fellow will work at the CCA in Glasgow, Scotland four days per week over the six month fellowship, working on a curatorial project or body of curatorial research. Fellows will be paid a flat fee of £8,000. Ideal candidates for the Fellowship are emerging or mid-career curators who can demonstrate passion and fresh thinking in curating and writing about contemporary art, and who have a vision for what the role of the curator means today.

The deadline for applications is October 21, 2011. Applicants will be notified November 15, 2011. Applications will be judged by Francis McKee, Director of the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow; Sally Tallant, Head of Programmes, Serpentine Gallery / incoming Artistic Director & CEO, Liverpool Biennial; and Michelle Kasprzak, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Curating.info.

Interested in applying? Download further information and the application form here.

More info about CCA: http://cca-glasgow.com

Welcome to February's Pick 'N Mix: the credit crunch special!

- They say the financial trends that impact the art world are about six months behind larger global financial trends. Perhaps there's a grain of truth to that, given the doom and gloom in the headlines recently, including a 20% reduction in staff at the LA MoCA and the Rose Museum's (apparent) imminent closure.

- Significant job security worries aside for a moment, what could this mean for curators? Mark Spiegler, Art Basel co-director believes that "...with less money flowing around, gallerists may conclude that if there are no sure sales, they might as well do something interesting and significant. In the past, certain types of art were sure to sell, and if you took a risk, you were leaving money on the table." Glasgow-based curator Francis McKee concurs with this sentiment, explaining in this longer segment on BBC Scotland the largely positive impact that the last major recession had on the London and Glasgow art scenes: "the recession will actually help us in some ways".

- And of course, in these tough financial times, it's never a bad idea for the state to intervene: In France, Nicolas Sarkozy has canceled a cut to culture funding and he instead increased the budget by €100 million, established a new cultural council, and implemented a policy enabling free entrance to museums for visitors under twenty-five years of age. Bravo!

- Last but not least, while we may have to stretch budgets a bit further for practical things, Ben Davis argues we should not allow ourselves to enter an intellectual recession as he discusses a current crisis in art criticism: "For if a neoliberal boom has been the context for the "crisis of criticism" debate heretofore, the current, stomach-turning collapse represents the implosion of that economic model. [...] Mainstream ideas about what makes sense for society are in flux. Shouldn’t criticism be too?"