I find the economic questions very interesting.
The institutionalisation of culture is not limited to the arts, new
media arts, or even the 'cultural industries'. What used to be quaintly
described as 'accountancy culture' was simply the first stage of
deconstructing the welfare state in the UK. The commodification of
creativity to underpin privatisation is found across the public sector -
universities, schools, hospitals, galleries and museums included.
I am an independent curator and I earn half the salary of my peers in
other professional fields. I value what I do, and my peers value what I
do, even if the current economic system doesn't. But I don't lament this
situation because I work in the arts. The needs of all freelance
workers, who experience precarity to a greater or lesser degree, are the
provision of pensions, sick pay and maternity pay. In the meantime the
gap between the salaries of 'Directors' and their 'staff' seems to be
increasing without much debate. (If a gallery can't appoint a director -
they double the salary, if they can't appoint a curator they employ one
on a freelance basis).
In the UK Academic funding is replacing Arts Council (lottery) funding,
soon to be soaked up by the Olypmics. The competition is high.
The challenge to curators, whether in a museum or university, - is how
to work across institutional boundaries, how to bridge the gaps between
'culture' and the representation of it. Or is culture actually happening
somewhere else? Afterall - it's something you do, not something you
buy...
I'm interested to know how curators find transferable language or
practices which enable them to collaborate with the institutions, use
the 'buzz words' and tick the boxes to ensure that they get paid for at
least some of the work they do... Whilst retaining the integrity of
their subject, and their relationship with those working outside of the
institution (including most artists).
Or - are we like the National Health Service workers whose primary
feedback is the fear of loosing their jobs through speaking out...
Are there New Media models for alternatives to the institutionalisation
of culture?
What about Open Source and Creative Commons?
For example, many in-house corporate programmers develop open source in
their 'spare' time.
Do curators use Michel de Certeau's tactics of the everyday to find ways
of reclaiming political and cultural integrity through the loopholes of
bureaucracy?
Does 'art' or exhibitions provide a 'Temporary Autonomous Zone' (Hakim
Bey) where these questions can be explored outside of the institutional
paradigm?
Are their 'curatorial' equivalents?
How do we survive and keep sane?
Best,
Ele
-----Original Message-----
From: Curating digital art - www.crumbweb.org
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sally Jane
Norman
Sent: 29 January 2007 09:17
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] value for money?
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
________________________________
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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