Thinking Contemporary Curating

by Terry Smith, Kate Fowle (Introduction)

What is contemporary curatorial thought? Current discourse on the topic is heating up with a new cocktail of bold ideas and ethical imperatives. These cooperative curating, especially with artists; the reimagination of museums; curating as knowledge production; the historicization of exhibition-making; and commitment to extra-artworld participatory activism. Less obvious, but increasingly of concern, are issues such as rethinking spectatorship, engaging viewers as co-curators and the challenge of curating contemporaneity itself. In these five essays, art historian and theorist Terry Smith surveys the international landscape of current thinking by curators; explores a number of exhibitions that show contemporaneity in recent, present and past art; describes the enormous growth world wide of exhibition infrastructure and the instability that haunts it; re-examines the contribution of artist-curators and questions the rise of curators utilizing artistic strategies; and, finally, assesses a number of key tendencies in curating as responses to contemporary conditions. Thinking Contemporary Curating is the first book to comprehensively chart the variety of practices of curating undertaken today, and to think through, systematically, what is distinctive about contemporary curatorial thought.

Genres: Art, Curation, Nonfiction, Research, Theory

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 25, 2012

About the author

Australian art historian, art critic and artist who currently lives and works in Pittsburgh, New York and Sydney.

Reviews

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Done!

[Ravin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truely wonderful insight into the wonder which is the curatorial world. Having experienced the art of this craft working at one of the galleries featured in the text, to be able to contextualise all that we have done: whether it be events, placement, or signage, into an exploration of just what curatorial practice is was fantastic - and an extremely useful ressource to refer back to. Beautifully written and formatted. A must read for any aspiring curator or art aficionado.

[Michaela Y-M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of excellent reflection and commentary on contemporary curating…gets a bit slow in the second third of the book but overall a great overview to some of the pressing thoughts of exhibition making today.

[Maro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Working on "a particular constellation of meaning that cannot be made known by any other means".