Dig the new breed

By Hamish Coney, November 11, 2007 @ 6:30 am

Curators are the new superstars of the art world. Here’s why

[Art]

A recent show at Auckland’s New Gallery is as much about the curator as the artwork on display. ‘Mystic truths’ curator Natasha Conland scoured the globe to find artworks that match the exhibition theme, ‘The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths’.

It’s a show with real meat on its bones. Most of the art—by artists from Denmark, Germany, the UK, France, Israel, the Netherlands, Ireland and New Zealand—is new and unfamiliar to local eyes, but the curator’s wizardry knits it together into a coherent whole that makes the theme reveal its slow-burning magic.

To those unfamiliar with the inner workings of the art scene, the role of the curator is often mystifying. To understand what curators do, it helps to understand what they used to do. They pretty much just looked after things. They made sure the artworks were safe and sound and didn’t get lost or nicked, hauled a gallery’s collection out on an irregular basis, hung it in a different order from the last show’s and, hey presto, curator’s job done.

Today, with blockbuster touring exhibitions and epoch-making biennales and global franchise museums (believe me, the Guggenheim Auckland is not as far-fetched as it sounds), the curator gets the same billing as a movie director, a fashion designer or a rainmaking sports coach. A curator gets paid to have a point of view … on steroids. Curators sift through the vast annual harvest of art and spot trends, find connections and, occasionally, make sense of it all.

It turns out that New Zealanders are quite good at this curating gig and, as with so much of our current visual art, the world wants a taste of Kiwi. Why do we make great curators? Who knows … must be the same reason we make great sailors, fashion designers and filmmakers. Vision, ability, self-belief and, who would have thought, a world-class culture of excellence.

In the last few years some of our best and brightest curators have been poached by international arts institutions. Robert Leonard, formerly of the New Gallery, now runs the show at the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane. The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery’s former director, Greg Burke, now helms the prestigious Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto.

Good modern curators have a twin role. First, they have to come up with a grunty and contemporary theme with a catchy title such as ‘Turbulence’ (the choice at this year’s Auckland Triennal), ‘Mixed up childhood’ or ‘What sound does a colour make?’. The show name is a bit like the signature tune of a musical: it provides a soundbite-type vibe of why the show is unmissable and somehow totally on the money about the zeitgeist. This makes the exhibition ‘pitchable’ to artists and sponsors, resulting in an A-grade selection of both, and makes the show a future touring proposition, earning the curator and the originating gallery kudos and that all-important art world credibility.

Second, the theme has to be a bit of a rabble-rouser and attract punters. The curator has to mix the right amount of conceptual juice to satisfy the judgmental-as-hell art world with a dollop of pizzaz to get the general public through the door in sufficient numbers to keep the gallery’s masters and mistresses happy.

This means that today’s curator has to combine the intellectual clout of a seasoned academic, the sales skills of an arms dealer and the razzle-dazzle of Siegfried and Roy. As you will appreciate on your next visit to a gallery, the art of curating is not just about the art. It’s about the show.

Hamish Coney is a director of art auction house Art+Object. He wrote ‘The ideas factory’ about New Plymouth’s Govett-Brewster Gallery in Idealog #6