Forgive me for going back over a topic, but sarah cook suggested a couple
of weeks ago that I post this to the list for an 'alternative response'
(but I have only just been in one place long enough to do it). Reading last
months archives I can see why, and wonder if might raise any new questions
re your previous dialogue...
jess.
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From: Jess Loseby <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: curating the curators
Date sent: Tue, 13 May 2003 20:46:20 +0100
Send reply to: [log in to unmask]
thoughts on a tuesday eve with no coffee in the house...
I'm going to write this as I think it (hey, whats new) but I wanted to put
down my thoughts as I have been reading the posts regarding the lastest
developments at Walker etc and rhizomes continuing struggle. Eryk's
dismissal that rhizome would be around in 2004 set me off.
I was saddened by the Walkers 'downsizing', I haven't always agreed with
Dietz curatorial decsions but simply the idea of a new media curator alone
is something that is only being realised in a much smaller and independent
capcity here in the UK. The fact this could be seen as a failed experiment
of new media curating by major galleries could be detrimental outside the
US too. I am also frustrated at rhizomes continual need for change and
justify its own existence to maintain financial support. I have only been
here two years so haven't got the history to morn for the good ol' days,
but as with anything successful (and I would - despite current areas of
frustration class rhizome as a success) I think a combination of the
pressure both financially and to remain 'new', 'educational' and 'slick'
(can you be all three?) has distracted from 'resource', 'discuss/promote'
and 'archive'.
However, I'm mildly stunned in what I seem to be reading as the general
surprise of many artists and the american institutions during the emails
of this last week, that somehow, the public have failed to 'get' new media
(net art) and that its percieved failure to thrive (resulting in the
museums last-in-first-out approach or rhizomes struggles for funding) is
as a result of various accusations. These seem to include an
institutional desire to repackage the net as video or film, the technical
complexity in exhibiting and archiving new media or the widespread
economic cutbacks restricting 'ambitious' curating etc etc etc.
My question is - when does a harsh examination of the curatorial decisions
of what aspect and how net art and new media has been exhibited and
supported take place? How have the grants been distributed (in terms of
curatorial decisions) and how 'successfull' (in terms of producing
significant works and promoting and advancing new media as a genre) have
selected projects been? If the public have failed to 'get' net.art/new
media, is it a failure of the exhibiting policies of the
museums/organizations in terms of promotion and accessibility and/or a
failure of the works selected themselves to engage and to be able to exist
as rounded artworks outside the texts, the seminars and the hype....
We've been through these conversations before in one way or another, from
Curts suggestions of limitations on the genre being placed in the subtexts
of critical writings to Marcs essential argument that institutions need to
get in touch with their grass roots or watch their own growing
irrelevancy. What I wonder is how, despite this list, despite all the
other lists we all belong to and despite our own work independently as
artists - is how we get heard.
As artists, we know why we a practising on the net or new media (although
these reasons are as eclectic and an various as the methodologies
employed), we know that within these works can be absorption, playfulness,
shock, subversion and unsettling intimacy - traditional foundations for
artworks that both endure and attract. Most of us on raw are predominantly
net based, we have artworks delivered to our inboxes. The works we create
are contextualised by whats around us or else they are quite literally
being created out of them.
But what about the curators? In their bid to keep the NEW in new media,
textual combinations seem constrained; unsettling playfulness, shocking
subversion and...what then ?? Have Bloggers patronisation of say,
E8Z's 'old fashioned themes' or Dietz's self styled curatorial 'filter'
finally literally sieved out what makes net and new media so rounded. I
have never though the net 'needs' the institutions, but without their
input my fear is the kind of aesthetic gameplay of Amerika & PS2 will be
the only sources of substantial sponsership and longevity that will
remain.
I've just read that Walkers cutbacks will save $1m per annum. Though
peanuts compared to the overall budget, curatorially that's a pretty
decent sized wallet in which to establish (and bloody hell) at least set
up contingency so the work can be decently and permanently archived.
have to go, just thinking outloud.
j.
o
/^\rssgallery.com
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