Quote from Gilbert & George’s Triptych ‘Scapegoating Pictures’ , 2013
Art curation is one of those subjects which might confound some people. Do we really need curators? Doesn’t art just speak for itself….is this all some highfalutin line of work to make art even more obscure.
The simple answer of course is that it’s exactly the opposite. A more complex discussion might involve years of social, economic, and cultural evolution, new technologies, changing societies and viewpoints, new ways of seeing things - so we will try and keep this conversation simple. Not because we feel people wouldn’t want to get into it, but essentially, as with everything else we do at ArtKyk, our focus remains on how we can best translate art subjects without having to write a thesis!
But to start with a nerdy fact. Curating comes from the Latin word, ‘curare’ – to take care. A rather life affirming way of looking at art, and what curators bring to it.
So, at its core, a well curated show for us translates into a story well told. To entice the audience with a premise, reel them in with a narrative, and let them leave with the satisfaction of having gained something higher, more contextual about art and artists, which makes their worldview a little richer, and perhaps even create an epiphany!
There is much literature on selection, organisation and presentation of curated shows. While curating itself remains a popular and much in demand career within the art sphere, we find the best curators have the ability to seek out the hidden threads between artworks, an artist’s work span, and weave a narrative, which touches the contemporary audience in a personal manner.
This brings us to what really sparked this discussion. As with many other things these days it was AI and technology. It is of course rather annoying to have to continuously upend our thoughts, and reaffirm what we believe, but it allowed us to rethink what we know and how we want to translate this in the future.
Nasher Museum of Art, at Duke University produced a ChatGPT exhibition through AI, with an idea to ‘push the boundaries of curatorial practice’. AI titled the show – “Dreams of Tomorrow”. Based on what we have read (we haven’t seen the show), we understand the diversity of material ranging from pieces dating 2000 BCE to 2021, felt disjointed and a tad overwhelming for most viewers, yet there was much curiosity and some good ratings.
In 2022, a similar exercise was attempted at the Bucharest Biennale, led by AI named Jarvis. We understand other similar projects are also underway by museums and biennales.
This might be just the start of AI curation, and it will no doubt evolve. It is, however, important to understand that the human agency still stores, and subconsciously assimilates, processes much inbuilt memory, threads of information, even though it might not be all at the click of a button. So, while AI will be very helpful in sifting through data, images information already available on the worldwide web, a thinking mind and discerning eye may not be currently part of it.
We wonder where this will lead to. Since the only constant in all things is change, it becomes necessary to understand how these projects might shape the future. And not just through technology, but also the changing circumstances of the artworld. Unlike before, where going to art shows in galleries, museums, and other institutions, was a purview of the few, the appeal of a well curated show, ‘blockbuster’ artists with mass following is now spread far and wide, especially on social media, where many artists regularly offer works directly to interested buyers.
So, it brings us back to how we started this article, by defining curation - to care. How will technology, AI, changing norms shape the narrative? Will there be more projects based on the myriad works, available for high-powered AI software to rake through and combine with some fragmented themes…or will it be something completely new, unseen as before, much outside our current imagination, carefully shaping a more evolved worldview.
These questions puzzle us, sometimes as much as art does….
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