THE CURATORS
Kuratorzy. The Curators, 2019
Publisher: BWA Wrocław Galerie Sztuki Współczesnej
Languages: Polish, English
Number of pages: 188, hard cover
ISBN 978-83-63505-47-9
Curator: Anna Mituś
Book in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York
The idea behind the project is to switch roles. It is not the curators who deal with the artist and create an exhibition out of her works, but it is the artist who puts themselves in the spotlight, presents and subjects the results of their actions to public evaluation. Today, when almost every gallery, even a union or academic one, has its own curator, and a huge number of graduates of art history and curatorial studies populate this professional field, it is worth setting up the camera again to capture the representatives of what is perhaps the most mythologized profession in the cultural sector. Now we can see what lies behind the fantasy.
In the construction of this piece, the artist consciously limited herself to hard data. Confronting the subject of exhibiting contemporary art in Poland, Maryna Tomaszewska, as usual, conducted meticulous research. After a nearly year-long search of cultural institutions and events, she decided to cover the full spectrum of recent art ventures through her project. The artist defined that a curator in Poland is any person who, in the period between 2015-2019 in the public domain, defined himself by this profession. Regardless of the quality and quantity of the exhibitions presented, the issues addressed, the artists invited or the curatorial model adopted. What was important was the volume of so-called curators. With this gesture, Tomaszewska went far beyond the mainstream, creating a working typology of the field which included an open list of categories of curatorial patterns in Poland.
The exclusive form of the publication, hardbound, gilded, and embossed, alluded to the fetishization of the curator’s status in the institution. The modest, endless list, reminiscent of a monuments’ familiar index of essentially nameless figures, in reality, underscores the low status of these cultural workers.
The narrative component of this project is the film A Day in the Life of a Curator
The project was part of the exhibition: Whole of Poland.