January 8, 2009
Exhibiting in an art institution is crucial for an artwork, because it means making it known to the public. Some artists and their work become visible whilst others disappear due to the power of institutions. These institutions work to establish chosen artworks as a norm or a canon--as Gael Newton did for modernism at the Australian National Gallery.
Art institutions claim the authority to consecrate some artifacts as works of art and relegate others to the dustbin of history----eg., John Szarkowski, who introduced photography into the art museum despite the constraints imposed by the exhibition venue in the decisions he made as curator. So an artifact which was so far neglected by art museums changes its meaning after being chosen by a curator to feature in an art exhibition.
Is it the curator’s role in a public art art gallery to act against the institutions, subverting the canons and undermining the patterns of exhibition and acquisition policies?
The last 40 years have marked the rise and proliferation of curators, collectors and architects specializing in making museums into powerful corporate brands that are intended to provide mass entertainment, generate tourism or solve social problems. Art has moved from margin to centre.
In that period art museums and galleries began to be run as businesses and were increasingly driven into the non-independence of private–public partnerships, framed by an atmospheric event culture with more than 50 biennials and triennials worldwide. A highly competitive global market has emerged and it appears that in a highly competitive global market curation is increasingly driven by by sales – of art, at the box office and of advertising. The art market rules. Museums have brands--Guggenheim.
The control of programming has moved away from historians, academics and artists. Art has become generally not much more than entertainment, commodity production and spectacle – in other words, an embracement of amusement and excess.
The consequence is the extinguishing of the field of art as a site of resistance to the logic, values and power of the market and which challenges the authority of the institutions and structures that defined their work. On the other hand attempts to open up the enclosed territory of art and to diffuse art into the public arena has continued.
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