Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

On the Philippine Art Forum at Yahoogroups run by artist Mideo Cruz, a question on curators and curating came up (”To Curators: Why Curate? What’s in it for you, really?” Posted by Lena Cobangbang, Wed, 25 Jan 2006) On an earlier interview with Imogen Neale at the Lumiere Reader, I had very few nice things to say about curating:

Curating, which re-creates contexts and situations for art, artists and audience, basically thrives upon the alienation of the creative process from the art work.

In the same interview, I referred to U.S. President George W. Bush as “a great curator who has created an engaging context and a situation for global terrorism where the U.S. refuses to admit and be held accountable for being the lead “spect-actor.”"

It’s a very serious statement and it describes the terrain constructed by the institutional art world: a crisis in the diversity in creative thinking. It is the very same barren terrain which has given the U.S. the freedom and power to violate the basic rights of people across the globe (After the U.S. dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, it has since gotten away with bombing over 40 different countries).

I believe that the curator sprang flourishes from this crisis in critical and creative thinking, and that the curator is a logic of the conceptual blindness/linguistic muteness that defines the increasingly becoming more and more mono-cultural art scene. Interestingly, curators, as necessitated by an incompetent arts scene, may be related to the meaning of “curator” in Roman Law:

“Curator” derives from the Latin “curare” meaning “to take care of.” In Roman Law, the curator is a person (answering nearly to the guardian of English law) appointed to manage the affairs of a person past the age of puberty while he is a minor (i.e. until the age of 25). Persons legally incompetent, such as spendthrifts and lunatics, are also placed under the care of curators. (From Webster’s New International Dictionary with Reference History, 1933).

Thus, for as long as there are legal minors, spendthrifts and lunatics, there will be a career for curators.

I have friends who are full-time curators and I have worked as a curator myself. Experience has shown that I believe that not all curatorial practices are harmful (although curating can be dangerous to your health; I know a few artists who were emotionally and psychologically “destroyed” by taking on curating jobs). What I am challenging is the process of becoming a curator (where both curator and artist are implicated), the “professionalism” (i.e. dictatorship) of the field within the criteria of markets and careers.

The best curators I know are committed to knowledge, and they dialogue with artists in the process of building knowledge. The worst curators I know build their own careers by milking unknowing artists; these curators also thrive on the patronage of artists whose own career ambitions come before any commitment to knowledge or creativity (just as even the best artists degenerate once they entrust their careers to curators); Wwithin the slash-and-burn “care” of unscrupulous curators, any fertile ground can quickly become barren.

Personally as an artist, I am interested in the exercise of articulation, that linguistic, sensual and conceptual exchange that takes place between myself and my mediums. As an artist-curator, I am interested in the exercise of articulation, that linguistic, sensual and conceptual exchange that takes place between myself and other artists whether personally or through their work. As an (ex-)educator, I am interested in how the exercise of articulation, that linguistic, sensual and conceptual exchange that takes place within a given learning environment - with particular interest in open (accessible), alternative and non-formal learning. Within these three universes, articulation is an aesthetic equilibrium between kaluluwa (knowledge), wika (language) and ginhawa (body). Or, [1] the operation of the perceptive apparatus; [2] the translation of the environment into the cellular architecture; and [3] computation, learning and experience in the process of symbolization; mapping more or less into [1] ginhawa or body; [2] kaluluwa or knowledge; and [3] diwa/wika or language.

Articulation is a very difficult process, especially perhaps for those rendered historically inarticulate by colonial education and imperialistic wars. I believe that articulation is the cure for the conceptual blindness / linguistic muteness that developed out of and reinforces the destructive career of curators. I also believe that it should be articulation in the vernacular and not in the “international language” of “international art”. Articulation in the vernacular is what makes multi-cultural dialogues most interesting — not when everyone is speaking a common language. Speaking a common language is only about “communication”, which I find distinct from articulation:

“In articulation, concepts are internalized and externalized through the medium of language. However, in communication (as what takes place in the image industries and the “information age”), there is no conceptual process but only the process of consumption (audience, viewer, consumer).”

After nearly two years, I intend to take on the curating path again (which to be honest also nearly “destroyed” me, just as teaching at university nearly destroyed me when the classroom was becoming more and more helpless against (or more and more like a hopeless prison for) the mind-numbing barrage of media). Seen as an exercise in articulation (in the vernacular), perhaps curating can genuinely be transformed and be transformative: the curator (curatus) as one traditionally charged with the cure of souls, perhaps the catalonan / babaylan / shaman, who, in this day and age, should be charged first and foremost with the cure of her own soul.

EMail This Post This entry was posted by Fats on Saturday, February 4th, 2006 at 1:18 am and is filed under Wika at Hirap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.