(Indian Pavilion Venice Biennale 2019- Shakuntala Kulkarni's work. All the images in this article are for representational purpose only)
‘Who is a curator?’ asks one of my students from Baroda. It
is always good to answer questions than enter into a conversation for the sake
of it. Of late, people in the art scene have been hearing a lot about the ‘tyranny’
of curators or rather ‘tyrannical curators’ who make artists work according to
their whims and fancies. However, the truth is a majority of the curators in
the world do not enjoy such despotic power. Having an insider’s view on things,
I could assert that a tyrannical curator is one who works ‘for’ the ideological
and financial policies of the institution in which he/she is a part of or hired
for a specific project. An independent curator has only a moral right to
implement his own agenda and it is not necessary that the artists agree to it
completely. But there are always artists who would like to work with a curator
of their choice or liking because the curator must be a highly respected
personality in the art and cultural scene or must be attached to an
indisputable organization. If artists prefer to work with an up and coming
independent curator, it must be because the artists find the curatorial idea
quite irresistible or the artists themselves must be demanding curatorial
platforms to get established in the art scene.
The idea of tyrannical curators is a myth and as I said
before the tyranny is a reflected ideology and power of the institution on the
curators. Once they are out of job or projects they are not considered that
important in the whole scheme of things. According to Pablo Helguvera, the US
based Mexican artist and commentator on the international art scene, curators
stand just above the artists in the hierarchy, a hierarchy that posits the
artists as producers of market(able) products and the museum director holds the
apex position. As we know in these days Museum Directors belong to the
corporations or trusts that run a museum. If it is a state owned museum often
the directors come as a part of the political strategy of the ruling dispensation
and the directors themselves shadow curate most of the projects for keep their
political ideology intact and also to prevent radical ruptures showing up in
the cultural narratives that they want to create. Powerful curators from all
over the world are closely attached to the institutions so that the global dominant
visual cultural narrative would not go haywire and there will be an apparently
decentralized presence that could easily hide the centrist hold over all the
projects that ensure the perpetuation of the ideas of cultural capitalism.
(From Venice Biennale 2019)
The grand illusion of tyrannical curators falls flat when
the politically driven institutions collapse the role divisions that exist
between the museum director, curators, consultants, in-house and hired
executives so on and so forth. The Indian Pavilion in the 2019 Venice Biennale
is the best example for these carefully erased demarcating lines. It is
officially an Indian Pavilion but the Director of the executing agency, the
NGMA-D does not play a pivotal role in deciding the artists and the art works.
He becomes a silent facilitator of the projects that are exhibited in the
Indian Pavilion. The private agency that has undertaken the job of planning,
devising and executing the projects has gone by their favorites but definitely
in the line that has been drawn silently by the director who has clear
instructions from the cultural minister regarding the image that has to be
projected about the country in an international platform like the Venice
Biennale. It is curious to know that even the private agency that has done a
big job in this case has not declared anyone as the curator of the Pavilion
while the in-house and hired curators are present at the Pavilion during the
opening of the project. That means the people involved in the Indian Pavilion
know where they have to draw the line and never cross it. It is an extremely
defeated game that has not brought any prestige to the country.
Coming back to the initial question of the curatorial tyranny,
I would say that only the independent curators who choose the right kind of
institution that would support them can only do justice what he/she thinks in
terms of a curatorial project. Only at the ideological level that a curator
could show the way and it is not advisable at all that the curator dictates the
artistic creation or suggests the possible materials to be used in the
production of the works. There are two ways of approaching this; one, the
curator could select the artists who are already doing works of art that
reflect the curatorial idea in many levels. It is an ideal situation. Two, the
curator could invite artists to a project and ask them to reflect on the curatorial
idea the way they want, in their style, in their chosen materials. The only
condition that the independent curators could put at this stage is about the
technicalities involved in the display. In an independent project, the burden
of display comes often on the shoulders of the curator. He/she is responsible
for arranging the basic facilities for the display, obviously with the help of
the institution that he/she is working with/for in the project. If the
institution is incapable of providing certain technical support, then the
curator should definitely inform the artists regarding this so that the artists
could devise different strategies in the very making of the works.
Curatorial ideas are not only challenging for the curators
themselves but also for the artists. Though people vaguely make comparisons
between film making and curatorial work, in reality they are extremely
different. Film making is a collaborative project with a director at the helm
of affairs. The actors and technicians are not given complete freehand in their
respective works. There is a directorial intervention in the very aspect of
film making. But in the case of an exhibition, the curator is not like a film
director. Curator cannot ask an artist to behave/produce in a certain way. If
at all there is a comparison, curator is more like an editor who arranges the
materials using a peculiar logic of his/her own so that different works gel
well in the given context. Unlike in a film where all components are driving
towards the totality of it, an exhibition project does not necessarily create a
single point narrative. The components of an exhibition could stand
differently, creating different interpretational directions and also
destabilizing the curatorial logic. In the case of a solo exhibition perhaps, a
singular narrative could be created using a curatorial idea and a willing
artist. But when we come to the mega shows curators function more like
editor-technicians than like directors who have total control over everything. Institutions
and institutional directors take over the final product of a mega show while
curators are relegated to facilitators’ positions.
Institutions or no institutions, some artists are extremely
particular about their works and the ways in which they are to be seen and
shown to the public. They are not just being control freaks but their idea of
displaying their works for the public means a lot of self-curatorial decisions.
They overlook or undercut the curatorial decisions often and come up with ideas
of display which eventually the curators have to succumb to. That happens only
when the artists are super stars and the curators are just paid laborers in the
institutions (such super star artists will not work with independent curators
if they are not supported by huge institutions). However, when the curator is
also a super star like Okwui Enwezor or Hans Ulrich Obrist and they join hands
with international brand platforms things change for better; both the parties
will consider walking half way to each other. Such shows actually make
differences in the global art scene while the Indian Pavilion in Venice
Biennale like makes no impact anywhere.
(from Venice Biennale 2019- Ashim Purkayastha and Nandlal Bose)
Curators could have been holding a lot of power in the art
scene provided if the very ideation process was not bought cheaply. The biggest
culprits in collapsing the curatorial interventions in the Indian art scene are
the gallerists, who started hiring the curators from here, there and everywhere
thinking that they would bring investors to their galleries. A lot of
curatorial talents were cut to size and rendered backroom executives. Many were
given hopes and became managers of art events in the galleries. Itinerant
curators were brought in thinking that their names would help the exhibitions.
At when things went really weird, in the vaudevillian charade the gallerists
themselves started doing the curators’ mantle. If curatorial projects are
killed in India, the whole responsibility should go on the shoulders of the
gallerists who lacked sophistication, grace and cosmopolitan outlook. If one of
the biggest corporations in India, through its double museums and
unquestionable art collection has taken over the Indian art scene making the
rest of the galleries working overtime to please the founder director of that
institution, none but the gallerists have to be blamed. They killed curatorial
interventions and in the process killed the young and upcoming curators.
History will not let them go scot-free. That’s why, even in the latest KMB
edition when the curator developed a conflict with the organizers none stood by
the curator because all the curators have been working in the galleries as
executives making negotiations with the KMB management to get their in-house
artists to be a part of the KMB’s forthcoming editions.
Considering the market realities and the contemporary history,
I do not see any prospects of changing the monopoly or loosening its hold over
all the collaterals in the Indian art scene. The present day galleries will be
reduced to ‘viewing rooms’ or the gallerists will become consultants for these
monopolies. When the monopolizing organization cannot showcase all what they deal
with in the market, these galleries will be functioning as the local showrooms
for the biggest ‘maker’ of visual art culture. The signs are already there; the
art journals have been reduced to single edition events during the Art Fairs.
Art Galleries have stopped having regular exhibitions. Former star artists are
reduced to the present day shame. Within the confusing political narrative and
the confused economy, the gallerists have found it safe to go with the dominant
ideology than showing any trace of resistance. Most of the self-declared
progressive artists have their names in the payrolls of the monopoly institution.
It’s not a doomsday prophesying but waking you up into the dawn of a stark
reality. There is only one way out. Believe in your art and live your life. The
ones who are at the mercy of the galleries and the monopoly now neither have any
belief left in them nor do they live their lives; they just wear good clothes
and smile therefore they are.
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