I want to come clean with
you guys about something. Ever since "The Art
Assignment" started, I've been calling
myself a curator. But it's a self given title. When I worked at an art museum,
I had that official title. But now I'm taking a bit
of liberty with the term. So let's talk about
what a curator actually is and whether or not I have
any right to call myself one. These days you hear the word
curator all over the place. I curate my Tumblr. He curates a collection
of vintage sneakers. She curated our music
selection this evening. And some people
get their panties in a bunch over this
use of the term. I don't really have
a problem with it, but I do want to
think about what it means in the
traditional sense and how the term
may have evolved. So the word curator comes
from the Latin curo, curare, which for our application
means to care for, to see to, to worry about. So a curator is a person
who cares for something or a collection of something. And you can care
for a lot of things. I used to care for contemporary
art as a curator at a museum. And now I care for
contemporary art as the producer
behind this show. But it's more
complicated than that. Being a curator for a
collection-- whether it's art, taxidermied
animals, rare coins, widgets-- usually
means you were hired to care for that collection
or part of the collection by a museum or other institution
that owns those things. And you were are hired because
you have some special knowledge or experience in that area. So you're either a specialist
or on the road to becoming a specialist, and there's
a reason why you're better suited to steward the
collection than a random person off the street. And you have to know that
collection in and out. You study it, you sort
it, you write about it, you talk about it with
other specialists, and continually try to
expand your own education on the subject. Figure out what needs
conservation and think about what's missing
from the collection. Then you agitate and fund
raise to fill the gaps through acquisitions,
commissioning, exhibitions, or programming. Then comes the part
where you are arrange the collection in rooms. OK, it's not really that simple. Let's call this step instead
presenting the collection to a public. This is done by making
exhibitions, writing books, essays, blog posts, labels,
giving tours and lectures, training tour guides,
writing press releases, and talking to the press. It's the curator's
job to bridge the gap between the material
they're presenting and the people they're
presenting it to. Some things are more
self evident than others, and it's the job of
the curator to provide as much or as little
interpretation as the material needs. When you're dealing
with contemporary art, the curator's job
is to best represent that art and the
artist who made it, while also
understanding the needs and knowledge of the audience. Maybe the artist doesn't
want any explanation of the artwork in the room with
the art, but you, the curator, strongly believe
your audience needs some tiny morsel of information
to effectively engage with the work. So you try to make the artist
see your point of view. And if that fails,
you make compromises like posting information
in a nearby gallery or in a pamphlet or book
or audio guide or online. Basically, you're the
middleman or the midwife or the mediator between the
material and the audience. You've got to try to
know your audience and have empathy for them. You need to provide
your audience with the tools they need to have
the best experience possible with that material. But you have to weigh
what's too little and what's too much, what's
too academic and art speaky, and what's pandering,
or overly simplified. And it's important
to remember that you can have a really diverse
audience with vastly different needs. It is the curator's
obligation to try to address those
needs responsibly and to the best
of their ability. Maybe you create labels
or guides specifically for kids, or an
audio guide or tours for those with special needs. OK, so what happens
when you're a specialist but you don't work
for an institution and you don't have a given
collection to steward? You're an independent curator. And you initiate
your own projects or are hired by others to
present material for them on a temporary basis. And this is where the
term starts to loosen up. I am no longer
affiliated with a museum or a particular collection,
so I'm technically a specialist in
contemporary art and art of the 20th and 21st century
who is applying that knowledge to this new project. I'm still caring for
contemporary art, and I'm doing that by
presenting the artwork and ideas of a wide range
of artists working today. I'm commissioning artists to
create assignments for you and then I'm commissioning
you to make art based on those assignments. Instead of a museum, I have the
platform of this video series. And I think about the
series holistically. I consider which artists
to make episodes with, in what order to
show them, how best to introduce their work
to you, what to ask them, and how to contextualize the
assignments historically. I try to think about what
you guys want to see, or what you might not
know you want to see, but that you'll like
when you see it. I work with the
artists we present to think through assignments
that are feasible for you, but also challenging. If you're watching these videos
and doing the assignments, I'm hoping that you're
becoming more and more familiar with the
recent history of art and the ways of thinking that
you might be exposed to when you see art out in the world. So I think I have a legitimate
claim upon the title curator, and I'm going to keep using it. I think if you're a
specialist in vintage sneakers and know that world
upside and down and you've done your research
and you've carefully considered your platform for presenting
said sneakers, as well as your potential sneaker
appreciating audience, I think that makes you
a legitimate curator of vintage sneakers. And I want to take a
look at your collection and hear from you about why
I should be interested in it. What do you think? What's a curator to you? Tell us in the comments. [MUSIC PLAYING]
