ArtSeen
Alternatives
Curatorial work is a jumble of creative, bureaucratic, affective, analytical, diplomatic, manual, theoretical, and organizational labor. While we often treat the intellectual work around creating an exhibition critically and inventively, I wonder what could happen if we also embraced our more administrative tasks this way?
This question has been on my mind increasingly as I watch curators take up the subject matter of politics, economy, and social engagement inside recent exhibitions. Why is there such a disconnect between what curators do and how they do it? What if for every utterance of Marxist theory in a catalogue essay, wall text, or a press release there was also an attempt behind the scenes to allocate inside the exhibition budget a reasonable wage for the labor of everyone involved?
It is assumed that the socially transformative aspect of our work resides in the theoretical or representational propositions inside our exhibition making. But over time I’ve come to think that where we might actually make a difference is rather in a tacit subversion of the status quo in our more practical affairs.
What if we routinely lent out unused exhibition space between shows or after hours to social organizers in need of a meeting place? Borrowed models of participatory budgeting from local politics so that artists and audiences worked with us to decide where the funding is spent? Donated our research materials or left over resources to aligned causes or organizations who could still put them to good use well after exhibitions end ? Realized that the skills that we use everyday inside our profession are also directly transferable to organizing in the more political sense of the word.
Curators rely on artists to think through the relationships between form and content on every level inside their work. In my ideal art world artists would also be able to rely on curators to do just the same.
Contributor
Laurel Ptak
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES

Looking Back, and Forward, as Ma-Yi Celebrates 30 Years of Innovative Work
By Billy McEnteeMAR 2020 | Theater
The Obie and Lucille Lortel award-winning theater company started out in 1989 producing solely the work of Filipino American writers; while that has evolved, so has the theaters definition of what a Ma-Yi play is. And thats a strength: in a company whose ethos and blessings are fortified by its creators, each new playwright brings with themto Ma-Yis numerous productions and artistic programstheir own world and experiences to expand and delight the companys evolving landscape of thought-provoking, envelope-pushing American plays.

Printmaking and Studio Work
DEC 19-JAN 20 | Critics Page
I have difficulty imagining what my work today might be, or look like, if I had never made prints. I take for granted so much of the experience made possible by the printing process that subsequently circled back into my studio, that I find it impossible to sort it all out and remember, let alone understand, what comes from where.
Grace Notes: Pam Tanowitz and Simone Dinnerstein’s New Work for Goldberg Variations
By Rachel StoneFEB 2020 | Dance
The ushers at the New York City premiere of choreographer Pam Tanowitz and pianist Simone Dinnersteins New Work for Goldberg Variations at The Joyce Theater warn me that the program is 75 minutes75 minutes!with no intermission. Its possible they have to tell me this, but either way, the length of Bachs Goldberg Variations (which, apocrypha alleges, he composed in 1741 as an anti-Scheherazade to help an insomniac count finally sleep) intimidates.
The Enduring Spark: The Work and Legacy of The Gordon Parks Foundation
By Yínká ElújọbaOCT 2020 | ArTonic
Yínká Elújọba profiles The Gordon Parks Foundation.