reklam

Whatever I Say Fades Faster than the Pages of the Book You Are Holding
Vasif Kortun, Words of Wisdom: A Curator's Vade Mecum on Contemporary Art

My six-year-old daughter used to look at registrars' Polaroids of works in crates, come with me to opening parties, and leave her footprints on white walls. And, as smart as she is, instead of the word curator, she says, "Dad is in the arts." I hope this fundamental lack of anxiety in her understanding between an "artist" and a mediator (of a work or a situation) will never disappear.

I just got on the Net and brought up the Rooseum site in Malmö, Sweden (www.rooseum.se/). The site is under construction, but there is a precise explanation about the ways in which the Rooseum will be directed when it reopens. After reading it, I promptly erased all I had written the day before. The Rooseum text goes like this: "Now, the term 'art' might be starting to describe that space in society for experimentation, questioning, and discovery that religion, science, and philosophy have occupied sporadically in former times. It has become an active space rather than one of passive observation. Therefore, the institutions to foster it have to be part community center, part laboratory, and part academy, with less need for the established showroom function. They must also be political in a direct way, thinking through the consequences of our extreme free-market policies."

Substitute imagination with advice. If you can't dream-you know if and when you can't-try securing a museum position. You will not have an endless supply of great ideas in life, and don't get arrogant. Know the art of the last thirty-five to forty years; never turn your practice into a daily routine; never accept a project if your heart is not in it.

Making exhibitions is neither a duty nor a job. An "exhibition" is a temporary, relatively sovereign space for-hopefully-experiment and reflection, which puts art together with a public. It can bring forth new conditions toward more just, more tolerant, more ethical ways of being with the world.

I just got back on the Net and read an article in the Sunday New York Times (February 18, 2001) about the massive proliferation of contemporary art tourism. Art as lifestyle has been in the making for a long time. I am reluctant to spoil the party. How can I? Numbers mean everything! There has been a transformation of the financially robust segment of contemporary-art sector, with artists, galleries, and museum institutions becoming compliant tools of the new (entertainment) economy. For them, it is not a survival move. They want a return to the late eighteenth century and be in the epicenter of the charade. For others, this "new" lifestyle means obliteration, domestication, ghettoization, and micro-streamlining.