The Author-Curator and His Critics

To say that many perceive the curator as an essential figure in the contemporary art world may certainly hit a euphemistic note, so excessively venerated is that figure today. To convince oneself of it one need look no further than the latest issue of the very serious French journal, Critique, devoted to the relationship between theory and contemporary art. One finds there an article entirely devoted to the glory of Hans Ulrich Obrist, the prolific European curator who, in 2009, was consecrated most influential person in contemporary art by the British magazine, Art Review.1 1  - Donatien Grau, “Curating is Now!,” Critique, No. 759-760 (“À quoi pense l’art contemporain?”) (August-September, 2010): 748-57. One reads that the “curating”2 2  - The words “curating” and “curator,” here as elsewhere in the text, are in English in the original French text. — Trans. practised by Obrist no longer has anything to do with discovering new artists, organizing exhibitions, or writing catalogues, that it is essentially a question of the “poetic production of reality”: “There is more proof every day now that it isn’t simply the artist, as creative figure, demiurge and ‘maker of the world,’ who is the object of attention, even of passion, but also the intermediaries, who are sometimes infinitely poetic themselves.”3 3  - Ibid., 748. The curator has not only replaced the artist, but has, by some surprising reversal, become the latter’s inspiration — as evinced by German artist Gerhard Richter’s book, O’BRIST, devoted to his friend Obrist in 2009.

Not very surprising, then, that such extravagant apology chafes the nerves not only of artists, but of many mediators as well. In 2010, New York artist Anton Vidokle sparked controversy in the on-line e-flux journal where he denounced the arrogance of curators who presumed to do without the artists.⁴ 4 - Anton Vidokle, “Art without artists?,” e-flux journal, No. 16 (May 2010), http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/136 (downloadable as 9-page PDF). See also the many reactions published in issue 18 of the journal. Similarly, French critic and art historian Paul Ardenne constantly deplores the pride and vanity of certain contemporary curators, as well as the weakness of artists who acquiesce too easily to the demands of those responsible for exhibiting their work, like Olivier Dollinger who, for the 2005 Paris exhibition, “Offshore,” had presented a video installation featuring the curator Jean-Max Colard.⁵ 5 - Paul Ardenne, “Artistes, encore un effort pour devenir complètement serviles,” Particules, No. 13 (February-March, 2006): 3.