My Blog

So, right, I work as a curator and as such, I often fall under the delusion that that is what I should spend much of my time thinking about. I am under just that delusion right now. But in this particular blog, I would like to rant a bit about the rampant myopia in my chosen field.

I have come to learn that there are certain pragmatic necessities in putting exhibitions together that exclude some work that I truly enjoy. For example, I am typically partial to more participatory event based projects, but here at MASS MoCA, those don’t go over well because we have to keep things going for over seven months. We just don’t have the resources to hold seven month events. But that does not mean that this work isn’t important.

Yet, there are tons of examples of cultural projects that MASS MoCA can not do that I completely adore. As someone who came out of Chicago where produced numerous hybrid, event based cultural projects emerged, I am sypmathetic to this format. What cracks me up is that in the ‘curatorial’ field, so many curators really think the perview of art begins and ends in exhibition space related work. And they also convince themselves that this is the most important work going on. It’s just such a joke. A modicum of humility would serve the curatorial field well.

I swear it also has to do with the fact that NYC is, in fact, one of the most formally conservative art places in the world. While there are supposedly thousands of artists operating there, the formats people choose to participate in are often exhibition space related. Even the folks who resent this model will often be found lamenting the fact that people "all around the world" are only producing exhibition friendly work. NYC is not the entire world but folks in NYC often confuse their city for the world. That wouldn’t be so bad if the more interesting practices going on in the world were readily available in NYC, but they aren’t.

This probably ties back to my previous blog about theory vs action, but whatev.

It also makes me so cranky and stupified at the total lack of ambition on behalf of critics in the art world. So much of it rings as some sort of hobby writing. They just kind of meander about without a pulse trying to find some quip to throw in. But none of it feels like there are any stakes involved (because there isn’t for them). But it’s so baffling. If curators actually engaged work with the intention of producing a critical culture, that some of that good ol’ fashioned avant-gardist tendency could flare up, then we could see some real ass-kicking. Then the problem of beauty vs aesthetics wouldn’t get in the way, because we are more importantly participating in a robust cultural movement to institute a radical democracy.

I guess the real trick is not the work itself so much as the communities of resistance that people choose or don’t choose to participate in. The tenor of the field transforms dramatically when folks are actively participating in a movement against global capital and control. And I realize that many of the folks that I can’t stand in my field have never even remotely participated in such a thing. That is, their perspective on radical politics comes from a profound haze of the world-as-hobby approach. I think it is a rare art world person indeed who actually understands that some socially relevant work ACTUALLY has the intention of changing the course of history. Such an attitude strikes our hobbyists as bizarrely naive as opposed to in-line with the course of history. I can see it in their eyes. Their insulated world has never touched anything remotely engaged with a revolutionary practice. And this massive haze of subjectivity is a structural barrier to getting shit done.

Hmmmm… that’s interesting. How to get through their cloudy heads? You might say, "who cares about them? move on!" Well, I used to think like that. But there are lots of them. And, they tend to have their hands on the steering wheels of power. Re-inventing everything can be tiresome and time-wasting for our limited radical resources. No, the radical community must take the reigns from them as well as produce critical counter structures. This is the only way.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 30th, 2005 at 9:08 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.