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Towards a curatorial continuum or How to fire a gun and time-travel

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thesis
posted on 2021-11-22, 11:34 authored by Phillips, Bruce E.

This thesis questions the ethics of curatorial agency: an issue that has plagued the profession since the influence of institutional critique of the 1960s. The proliferation of the ‘curatorial turn’ during the 1990s developed out of this legacy of institutional critique by grouping a diverse range of alternative practices that aimed to question curatorial agency. Curator Maria Lind defines this shift by making a methodological distinction between ‘curating’ and the ‘curatorial’. This is a binary division that posits curating as conventional practice that maintains hegemonic power structures and the curatorial as progressive and emancipatory. However, critics and curators such as Paul O‘Neill and Nina Möntmann argue that methodologies of the curatorial turn have become compromised by personal, institutional, political and economic motivations. Due to this, it is apparent that a shift in methodology alone is not sufficient to question the ethics of curatorial agency and that Lind's dichotomy of curating and the curatorial requires revision.  This study therefore explores how curators practice by studying different methodologies and to understand why curators practice by considering to what extent motivations influence the application of a curator’s methodology. The research specifically addresses these questions in relation to contemporary art curating within the broader framework of museum and heritage studies. To do so, I have put my own curatorial practice under scrutiny, using a range of mixed qualitative methods such as autoethnography, in order to delve deep into the decision-making process.  My research consists of six exhibition case studies that pertain to one of three common exhibition forms: group, solo or process-led exhibitions. Through a cross case analysis of these different exhibitions my findings suggest that there is not a distinct division between curating and the curatorial. Instead, I reveal that there is a complex interplay between spectrums of methodology and motivation. From this perspective, I argue for a new philosophy of curating that considers curatorial practice as an emergent spectrum charged with infinite possibilities, what I call the curatorial continuum.

History

Copyright Date

2017-01-01

Date of Award

2017-01-01

Publisher

Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington

Rights License

Author Retains Copyright

Degree Discipline

Museum and Heritage Studies

Degree Grantor

Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington

Degree Level

Masters

Degree Name

Master of Arts

ANZSRC Type Of Activity code

970121 Expanding Knowledge in History and Archaeology

Victoria University of Wellington Item Type

Awarded Research Masters Thesis

Language

en_NZ

Victoria University of Wellington School

School of Art History, Classics and Religious Studies

Advisors

McCarthy, Conal; Wedde, Ian