A Companion to Curation

The definitive reference text on curation both inside and outside the museum

A Companion to Curationis the first collection of its kind, assembling the knowledge and experience of prominent curators, artists, art historians, scholars, and theorists in one comprehensive volume. Part of theBlackwell Companion series, this much-needed book provides up-to-date information and valuable insights on the field of curatorial studies and curation in the visual arts. Accessible and engaging chapters cover diverse, contemporary methods of curation, its origin and history, current and emerging approaches within the profession, and more.

This timely publication fills a significant gap in literature on the role of the curator, the art and science of curating, and the historical arc of the field from the 17th century to the present. TheCompanion explores topics such as global developments in contemporary indigenous art, Asian and Chinese art since the 1980s, feminist and queer feminist curatorial practices, and new curatorial strategies beyond the museum. This unique volume:

• Offers readers a wide range of perspectives on curating in both theory and practice
• Includes coverage of curation outside of the Eurocentric and Anglosphere art worlds
• Presents clear and comprehensible information valuable for specialists and novices alike
• Discusses the movements, models, people and politics of curating
• Provides guidance on curating in a globalized world

Broad in scope and detailed in content,A Companion to Curation is an essential text for professionals engaged in varied forms of curation, teachers and students of museum studies, and readers interested in the workings of the art world, museums, benefactors, and curators.

Brad Buckley is an artist, urbanist, activist, curator, and Professorial Fellow at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, Australia. He was previously Professor of Contemporary Art and Culture at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, and has authored and edited many books and essays on contemporary art.

John Conomos is an artist, critic, writer, and Associate Professor and Principal Fellow at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. His art practice cuts across a variety of media and has been exhibited extensively around the world including at the Tate Modern, London and at MoMA, New York. He has authored and edited numerous books on contemporary art and cinema.

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Illustrations

Introduction
Brad Buckley and John Conomos

About the Editors

Section One: An Overview: The origin and provenance of curating

1. A Selective History of Curating in Pittsburgh: The Recent Story of the Carnegie International
David Carrier

2. Curating Curiosity: Imperialism, Materialism, Humanism and the Wunderkammer
Adam Geczy

3. Professionalizing the Field: The Case of the United States
Andrew McClellan

4. The Emergence of the Professional Curator
Carole Paul

Section Two: Movements, models, people and politics

5. Curating as a Verb: 100 Years of Nation-States
Juli Carson

6. Curating without Borders: Transnational feminist and queer feminist practices for the twenty first century
Elke Krasny

7. Displacements and Sites: Notes on a Curatorial Method
Maria Lind

8. Africa, Art and Knowing Nothing. Some thoughts on curating at the British Museum
Chris Spring

9. Curatorial Crisis
Martha Wilson

10. We Care as Much as You Pay - Curating Asian Art
Thomas J. Berghuis

Section Three: The curator in a globalized world

11. Museums are everywhere in China, there is no museum in China (or, how institutional typologies define curatorial practices)
Biljana Ciric

12. Curating the Contemporary in Decolonial Spaces. Observations from Thailand on Curatorial Practice in Southeast Asia
Gregory Galligan

13. Curated from Within: The Artist as Curator
Alex Gawronski

14. Decolonizing the Ethnographic Museum
Gerald McMaster

15. The Creature from the Id: Adventures in Aboriginal Art Curating
Djon Mundine

16. The Impact of Context Specificity in Curating amidst the Forces at Play in a Globalized World of Realms
Fato? Üstek

17. The Neglected Object of Curation
Lee Weng Choy

Section Four: Beyond the museum: Curating at the frontier

18. Parallel processing: public art and new media art
Sarah Diamond

19. Approach to the Curatorship of Virtual Reality Exhibitions
Arnau Gifreu-Castells

20. Tracing the Ephemeral and Contestational Aesthetics and Politics of the Living Archive
Erik Kluitenberg

21. Curating with the Internet
Sean Lowry

22. Arts& Science the Intersection (re)engineered
Melentie Pandilovski

Index