I am a Curator was a process-based exhibition project by artist Per Hüttner that took place at Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK, 5 November – 14 December 2003. During the period individual or groups of people with no experience of exhibition making created 36 exhibitions and briefly got to experience the process putting together a contemporary art show.Living as Form, p.134-35, ed. Nato Thompson, Creative Time Books, New York, 2012, They had artwork by 57 artists to interact with. The project stirred a lot of controversy in the art world at the time. The most common critique was that the project suggested that curation and exhibition making is easyO'Neill, Paul, Art Monthly; Apr2004, Issue 275, p7-10, 4p, 4 black & white photographs. Hüttner responded to this by writing: "the goal of the project was to inspire a more diverse and profound discussion about the meaning of artworks, exhibitions and the role of the artist." Over the years, the project has gained recognition and has been hailed as being ahead of its time and has been widely appreciated for its visionary qualities in readers on curation and research on the subject of art and exhibition making."Tundro, znaczy wolnosc" Marta Eloy Cichocka, Biuletyn 09/2006 (58), p.48-50, Poland
Background
Hüttner carried out a series of exhibitions that democratized or investigated the curatorial process in the late 1990s and in the early years of the new millennium.A Tasty Treat, James Westcott, Zingmagazine 18; p.270-272; 2003; New York, United States Many of these were collaborative and took place at the Gallery Konstakuten in Stockholm, The Hood Gallery in Los Angeles but also in galleries and public spaces in London, New York City and Vancouver and involved artists from different generations and included Geoffrey Farmer, Brian Jungen, Lenke Rothman, Neil Goldstein and curators like Reid Shier and Tone O Nielsen.Amelie Nordenfelt, "Introduction", Curatorial Mutiny, p. 9, edited by Per Hüttner, 2003, 120 pages, texts by: Per Hüttner, Amelie Nordenfelt, Gavin wade, Tone O. Nielsen, Drabble+Sachs, Claire Canning and Tone Hansen. Design by Voodoo Graphics and Jonas Lindén. Published by Föreningen Curatorial MutinyStockholm, 2003. In 2001 he created the curatorial framework for an exhibition at Nylon in collaboration with Goshka Macuga and Gavin Wade.Neal Brown, 3 in 1 Curatorial Mutiny, Part 4, Frieze, Issue 60, June – August 2001. and in 2002 at Curatorial Market at Cuchifritos and various public venues including Essex Street Market in New York. In these projects he developed ideas and practices that pointed towards a new way of relating to the art object and exhibition making that eventually became manifest in I am a Curator.:A Tasty Treat, James Westcott, Zingmagazine 18; p.270-272; 2003; New York City
"Despite its populist ideals, the Curatorial Market raises complex, insider issues about the relationship between artist and curator. ‘These two disciplines are beginning to mix and merge in ways that some people find appalling and others see as a powerful new development in the history of art making,’ Paul Clay explains. However, abandoning the idea of the autonomous piece of art can be problematic. ‘Having art that relates very strongly to the market context can fuck up the commodification process in an interesting way. It both points it up as an object to consume, and at the same time makes it harder to effectively remove from its context in order to be sold.’ Furthermore, ‘There is a danger that when curators have too strong an vision, the artists' works can end up simply as building blocks used to construct the curator's point. On the other hand if the curator's point is weak then the works can get stranded totally out of context’."
Hüttner has since developed these strategies both in projects like Repetitive Time,Per Hüttner: Repetitive Time, 2006, 116 pages including 30 colour plates, texts by Lena Boëthius, Laurent Devèze, Per Hüttner, Claire Canning and Stéphanie Nava, language: English, design by Henrik Gistvall. Published by Göteborgs Konstmuseum. Democracy and Desire,Democracy and Desire, 2007, 158 pages (A3) including 10 colour fold out pages. Languages: English, Swedish, Spanish and Rumanian. Design by Åbäke. Published by Vacio 9 and The Rumanian Cultural Institute. (In)Visible Dialogues(In)visible Dialogues, Ed. E. Arnér and P. Huttner, Published by Dent-de-Leone. and in the international research network Vision Forum.The Invisible Generation, ed. Gerrie van Noord, design Marie Proyard, Published by Vision Forum, Stockholm, Sweden.
Basic structure
During six weeks people or groups of people with no prior experience in exhibition making undertook 36 investigative exercises into the process of putting together an exhibition. From the outset, the idea was to create an exhibition each day, but quickly the focus moved to investigate the 57 artworks as a resource. In order to realize this strategy the artist developed some basic concepts:
Curator of the Day: The daily slots were administered through an application process through which we tried to give as many different people as possible, in relation to occupation, age, sex, social and ethnic background. More often than not, the Curator of Day was a small group. Meaning that in the end roughly 70 people were curators.
The Gallery Crew: The Gallery Crew was the Curators of the Day's aid in developing their ideas and the project that they wanted to realize during the day. The Curator of the Day was not allowed to touch the artwork, except in those cases when this was an integral part of the piece. All the handling and mounting of the work was carried out by the Gallery Crew. The crew was also responsible for informing the visitors to the gallery about the project and answering questions.
Support Structure: Support Structure hosted all the artwork. It was mobile and it was also used to display work, as well as change the size and appearance of the space. It incorporated two tables and half a dozen chairs that could also be used as plinths to present work on. But Celine Condorelli and Gavin Wade took their brief further and allowed Support Structure be a questioning and critical tool and an important aspect of the process of the project. The structure took the centre stage, but in an unexpected way the Curators of the Day remained strangely blind to the eleven meter long monster object on wheels and few, if any, references were made to it in their reports.Support Structures, Celine Condorelli, p. 115-128, Sternberg Press (2009), The two also offered objects and lists of what to do if the Curator of the Day gets stuck and included phone numbers to well-known contemporary curators.Paul O'Neill, p.168, Metropolis Rise: New Art from London, edited by Anthony Gross and Jen Wu, , London 2006.
The Selectors: To provide a dynamic collection for the Curator of the Day to choose from, six people were asked to select artwork for I Am a Curator. Each devised a different approach for his or her selection. They were Patrick Bernier, Melanie Keen, Lisa Le Feuvre, Tone O. Nielsen, Reid Shier and Per Hüttner.
The Interface Cards: A5-sized plastic cards were designed and realized by American artist Scott Rigby. For each artwork available for selection there was one corresponding Interface Card. The Interface Cards along with the website (which used the same design) were the main tools for the Curator of the Day to select artwork and devise their exhibition.
The Website: All the artwork available for selection could be browsed on Chisenhale Gallery's website. There was also continually updated photographic documentation of the exhibitions created by the Curators of the Day.
The exhibitions and the audience
Each of the 36 exhibitions realized within the framework of I am a Curator took on very different forms and used the artwork and the space in very different ways. Artist Hannah Rickards who was leading the gallery crew describes an exhibition that had great impact on the development of the project:
"Embassy of Work With Me (å.b.ä.k.e /RCA), emptied Support Structure of all its contents, Jokers and artworks, and developed a chromatic scale around the walls of the gallery (the structure having been pushed to the corner). The colour of the individual group members’ clothes determined which works they had responsibility for placing. The process had a very easily achieved self-perpetuating logic that extended to colour-coding drill batteries, masking tape, spirit levels, any tools that we may have set down for a moment. The colour-coding also included the covers of the CDs bought from the local junk shop in order to complete Sam Ely and Lynn Harris’ Playlist, along with all the book covers from Céline Condorelli’s and Gavin Wade's Joker selection of books. This seemed the most natural and successful exercise in devolution and levelling democratization that occurred during the run of the show. The ‘artworks’ suffered less in this melee than they often did when not surrounded by a chromatic sea of things; they were scrutinized and investigated by the curating group."
Hüttner talks about a few of the key experiences among the 36 exhibitions:
”I have to mention Anton Nikolotov’s project (11/12/03). He wanted the work to be selected democratically. He thus devoted the whole day discussing with the visitors which works should be displayed. Each visitor who was present at a given moment was given some time to voice why a certain piece should or shouldn't be shown. When everyone had presented their case, the group voted and notes were taken on the different ideas and how many votes the different pieces got. In the end the only show that was presented was one made up of these notes shown in the massive empty space. This approach allowed I Am a Curator to be taken to another level. The boundaries between Curator of the Day and audience vanished entirely. It was wonderful to see how the process of democratization could be taken one step further than had originally been foreseen. This democratic process was at once extremely rewarding, but also hugely tiring. Rarely have I seen the members of the Gallery Crew leave so happy and tired. It was also great to see how visitors tended to stay for hours to join the discussion. At one point 15 people were present for the vote."
Other shows included Sebastian Roach's Art for Wine Day 13/12/03 which took quite a nihilist approach to the task of selecting work:"Sebastian Roach is a Curator", e-mail sent out to Chisenhale mailing list, December 2003
”In exchange for the donation of a bottle of wine (or beer, or spirits – even a miniature, the important thing is the token) a visitor can select and display any piece of work in the show. Alternatively they can donate a new piece of work and I will give them a bottle of wine in exchange for it. In addition, through the course of the day I will install myself in an ‘office’ created by using the versatile structure as walls drinking wine, smoking cigarettes and writing. What I write will be spontaneous and in response – directly, indirectly, or entirely tenuously – to the work, the environment and the situation, and will obviously also be tempered by the increasing consumption of alcohol. Whatever writing I do produce at the end of the day will also be available in exchange for wine."
The diversity of the Curator of the Day and how they interacted with the work can be exemplified by Hüttner's endnote in the catalogue: