Good point. I'm not a curator either but in the English education circles I've recently begun to work in, ambiguities like those pinpointed by Sean as to what cultural activity is meant to be addressing make it hard to set a value against a mission. Intra- and inter-institutional, regional, national, international networks and politics, and timely yielding of fashion-dictated buzzwords, seem to be an increasingly large part of "cultural activity" of any kind. I'll have even stronger feelings about this no doubt after a couple of imminent recruitments in my university which will be a sounding board for our "multiple values" system.
There's a (late) Mayakovsky text I can't lay my hands on where he asks whether lollies wrapped in Venus de Milo papers in a Moscow department store - probably the same one that drove Bulgakov nuts - provide any sign of cultural enlightenment... Don't know what that has to do with the price of fish but it was just before he bit the bullet.
Lawyer turned curator? Drouot's and Christie's must be rolling in them but I suspect they're not necessarily on this mailing list.
So who's your hairdresser anyway? not the same as Cherie Blair's apparently!
best
sjn
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From: Curating digital art - www.crumbweb.org on behalf of Andy Polaine
Sent: Mon 29/01/2007 8:49 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] value for money?
Although I don't want to dampen the interesting theoretical threads
here unnecessarily, I do note that nobody has answered Sarah's
initial question, "how much is what you do worth?"
I'm not a curator, so I can't say. As a practitioner/educator I would
say more than most middle managers in commercial companies,
definitely more than a hairdresser, less than a CEO and about the
same as a Creative Director in an ad agency. I can put a number to
that if anyone would like.
It's perhaps the lack of willingness to put out a clear price on what
we/you do that makes it so easy for it so be so quickly de-valued by
others.
I know this is unlikely, but is there anyone on this list who used to
be a lawyer and is now a curator? I'd be interested in their
perspective...
Best
Andy
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Prof. Andy Polaine
Professor Gestaltung medialer Umgebungen
Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Fakultät Medien
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