SPACE: The Artist as Curator

In Support of Felt Exhibitions

As an artist, I view curation as collage, and as a curator, I view really great art-making as collage too. The action of bringing together particular things in a very specific way, perhaps referencing images and/or symbols that highlight, obscure, or create a metaphor at the heart of the work, and then tying off the whole thing in a beautifully executed bow. At the core of making art, it’s discovering content (research), cutting up content (practice), arranging content (creation), affixing content (affirming and exhibiting), and then documenting content (finalizing, sharing, and discussing). Isn’t this also the framework for creating an exhibition? This goes here, and that goes here, and this is the substrate, and this will work well here, but not here, and this is how the lighting needs to look on this, but different over here, etc etc. Generating an experience with the intuition of an artist, the eye of a patron, and an openness to response–from the space, from the work in proximity, and from public opinion.

For me, the best curators are creative individuals, not pure academics. Or perhaps creatives with an academic mind but the heart of an artist.  Artists are curious and fickle beings. They explore and investigate the world boldly, digesting experience and churning over meaning, all for the inherent need to create something to share (or not). Artists tend to know a little bit about a lot of things, allowing interconnecting weavings to flourish over time, and disparate connections to create a framework for divergent thinking. When an artist curates, this knowledge compounds through working with other creatives, creating a multiplication of interpretation. This leads me to Beyoncé (as everything eventually does).

In 2019, Beyoncé created an album called The Gift in response and in addition to the Disney remake of The Lion King (in which she herself is a voice actor).   The album was subsequently released alongside the visual album Black is King, an artistic reinterpretation of the classic tale. This reinterpretation is an act of curation that I see as a pinnacle of multi-modality collage. Beyoncé seamlessly transforms a tale, which is actually a retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, into a contemporary remake grounded in ancestral history, personal inquiry, and cultural authenticity, and projected through the kaleidoscopic lens of many creators all at once. Not to mention that she does all of this while actually creating something designed to be shared with children, the next generation. She makes something deeply personal, completely accessible, artistically designed, and easily digestible within the same moment.

In the documentary for the film, Beyoncé Presents: Making the Gift, she remarks, speaking about Kendrick Lamar’s “Nile”, “It’s more than just the music; it's a soundscape. It’s sonic cinema, and it leaves space for you to put yourself in the film. And I think that’s really powerful.”

An artist knows how to string a narrative, inform the viewer, create something visually striking, and allow enough negative space for the viewer–or in this case, listener–to find themselves within it. There is something intentionally not perfectly figured out in an artist-curated exhibition, and this is what makes it magical. The exhibition is a felt, experiential collage, with enough room for the viewer to enter and create their own meaning within a space that still has its own questions. It lacks an editor and a final draft and a big heady statement, because it's still a work in progress, something to be chewed on and continually explored, changed, added to, or maybe even completely painted over.

And so I wonder: Can a curator act simply as a catalyst and then take a step back, or do they remain vital to the exhibition's central underpinning? Can the original intention of the exhibition shift without curatorial approval simply from works in proximity to each other, and if yes, what does this say about the curation? Perhaps an intentional choice shifts into a subconscious feeling when the works inhabit the space together, and at that point, who is making the decisions, the artists or the curator (or both)?