Current issue
May 2008 to July 2008
Exploring the challenges faced in current approaches to curatorial practices, The Curating Issue takes a journey through a small commercial gallery in London, to the burgeoning trend towards collaboration in artistic and curatorial practice, to historical artistic landmarks in Latin America, to digital art in Manchester and finally into outer space with Arts Catalyst and the European Space Agency.
Online now:
Rebecca May Marston in conversation with Mary Paterson puts forward that curating can be creative and ideas based; whilst simultaneously being administrative and essential to the smooth organisation of an exhibition. We get a revealing insight into how she runs and operates her commercial gallery, Limoncello which developed from Ryan Gander's one year Associates project.
Gillian Howard argues in her article 'A Space to talk: Curator, Artist, Collaborauteur' that there has been a significant shift away from the didactic model of curating and towards a more collaborative model where artist and curator work together. She raises a challenge to institutional gallery spaces to create a space for genuine dialogue between artist and curator.
Lucia Vodanovic reveals in 'Brighten up the shadow: the after-life of Latin American art in recent curatorial practices' how the challenges presented to the curator trying to present artwork that has been made in response to a very specific political and social situation can be a treacherous business. Yet this can lead to a heightened level of creative intervention from the curator, creating methods of presentation that almost become new works in themselves.
Coming soon:
In the second part of the issue, Dialogue Journal editor Lucy Gibson interviews Karen Gaskill, an independent curator who is developing innovative approaches to showing digital art in disused spaces in central Manchester.
Nicola Triscott opens up the work that Arts Catalyst have been undertaking with the European Space Agency, bringing culture to 'an arena in which contemporary art is rarely seen and little understood'.[1]
Notes:
[1]Triscott, Nicola, A Curator-Diplomat in the Space Between, Dialogue, May 2008
Lucy Gibson, May 2008
Issue commissioned by Helen Holtom, edited by Lucy Gibson
Interview with Rebecca May Marston conducted by Mary PatersonContributed by:
Mary PatersonMary Paterson recently interviewed Rebecca May Marston, curator and director of Limoncello Gallery. In the following transcript of their conversation they explore the motivations behind the gallery and how it developed from Ryan Gander's Associates; along the way they unpick a few preconceptions and ideas about curating and discuss May Marston's approach to running a commercial gallery that respects the artists over its profits.
A Space to talk: Curator, Artist, Collaborauteur by Gillian HowardContributed by:
Gillian HowardGillian Howard discusses the shift that is occuring away from the didactic model of curating and towards a more collaborative model where artist and curator work together. In this article she discusses examples of collaborative models and raises a challenge to institutional gallery spaces to create a space for genuine dialogue between artist and curator.
Brighten up the shadow: the after-life of Latin American art in recent curatorial practicesContributed by:
Lucia VodanovicLucia Vodanovic takes the recent publication of 'Copying Eden: Recent Art from Chile' as the starting point for a revealing journey through the difficulties of presenting art that was created during and after Pinochet's dictatorship to a contemporary audience. Not isolating the discussion to Chile, the article also brings in neighbouring countries, where similar political upheaval shaped a generation of artists, and in some cases actually stopped them making art at all. With this in mind Vodanovic looks at how contemporary curators have met with significant challenges in trying to bring the work of these artists to a wider international audience, one that did not experience the original climate in which the work was made.