Curator
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A curator of a cultural heritage institution (e.g. archive, library, museum) is a person who cares for the institution's collections.
In the United Kingdom the term is also applied to government employees who monitor the quality of contract archaeological work under PPG 16 and are considered to manage the cultural resource of a region.
In contemporary art, the curator is the person who organizes an exhibition. Thus, to curate means to arrange a collection to achieve a desired effect. A new figure in contemporary art is the freelance curator, who does not have affiliation with any particular gallery or museum. Harald Szeemann of Switzerland is a good example of such a curator.
Today, as art institutions face an array of new challenges - management and financial to media and digital related - the role of the curator is being re-thought. One consequence of this has been the emergance of academic courses in contemporary art and curatorial practice (Royal College of Art, UK/ Bard College USA etc). Independent curators can develop their own idiosyncratic methods for exhibition, be invited by museums and galleries to curate exhibitions in their spaces or operate in hybrid roles (publishing, collecting, installing, designing etc). 'Tactical Curating' is a term used by independent curator Roger McDonald (based in Tokyo with AIT) to refer to the peculiar characteristics and advantages of operating independently.
External links
- The Exhibitionists--geared towards children, an interactive guide to how an exhibition is put together (http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/nof/maths/)
- Roger McDonald on 'tactical curating' (http://www.rogermc.blogs.com/tactical)