Curationism : how curating took over the art world and everything else / David Balzer.
Material type: TextPublisher: London, [England] : Pluto Press, 2015Copyright date: ©2014Description: vii, 131 pages ; 20 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 0745335977
- 9780745335971
- 708 23
Item type | Current library | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book | City Campus City Campus Main Collection | 708 BAL (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | A507785B |
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Now that we 'curate' even lunch, what happens to the role of the connoisseur in contemporary culture? 'Curate' is now a buzzword applied to everything from music festivals to artisanal cheese. Inside the art world, the curator reigns supreme, acting as the face of high-profile group shows and biennials in a way that can eclipse and assimilate the contributions of individual artists. At the same time, curatorial studies programs continue to grow in popularity, and businesses are increasingly adopting curation as a means of adding value to content and courting demographics. Everyone, it seems, is a now a curator. But what is a curator, exactly? And what does the explosive popularity of curating say about our culture's relationship with taste, labour and the avant-garde? In this incisive and original study, critic David Balzer travels through art history and around the globe to explore the cult of curation - where it began, how it came to dominate museums and galleries, and how it was co-opted at the turn of the millennium as the dominant mode of organizing and giving value to content. At the centre of the book is a paradox: curation is institutionalized and expertise-driven like never before, yet the first independent curators were not formally trained, and any act of choosing has become 'curating.' Is the professional curator an oxymoron? Has curation reached a sort of endgame, where its widespread fetishization has led to its own demise?
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