Curated From Within: the Artist as Curator

Curated From Within: the Artist as Curator:

Artists invented what we now understand as modern curating. The various avant-gardes established types of display that fundamentally changed what was possible in an exhibition context. Furthermore, they pushed curating into sociopolitical territory to challenge art's assumed separation from the world around it. In the 1960s, maverick professional curators practiced lessons learned from the artistic avant-gardes. Although there had been some influential courses in curating, most notably at Harvard, as early as 1921, it was not until the 1980s that professional courses in curating dramatically expanded, not only establishing themselves but also usurping the centrality of the artist-curator in the public's consciousness. The subsequent rise of the sociopolitically aware biennale and the star-curator attested to the curator's centrality in contemporary culture. Responding to curators adopting a creative mantle, various artists assumed an institutionalizing one instead. They founded fictional institutions to critique the authority of the institution of curating. Their efforts were echoed by other practices of independent artist-run spaces, also known as “artist-run initiatives,” that drew curating close to interventionist and activist intentions.