A Guardian Arts Editor Sparked a Furor by Suggesting Curators Don’t Need to Be Named in Reviews. Here’s What’s Really at Stake

An arts editor at the
Guardian kicked up a storm this week when he took to
Twitter with a message for curators: don’t expect to be named when
your exhibition is covered in the press.

“Dear curators, in the same way
that I don’t get a byline when I commission and edit a piece,
chances are you won’t get mentioned in the Guardian when
we cover one of your shows,” Alex Needham, who has been the arts
editor at the national British newspaper since January 2018, wrote
on Tuesday. “That’s just how it is.”

Unsurprisingly, the message
incited a flurry of polarized responses from curators, editors, and
writers across the globe, many of them frustrated with Needham. Why
shouldn’t curators—the authors, some argued, of the exhibitions
critics see—be mentioned in reviews? Some of the responses made the
point that, especially in an era of “alternative facts” and
widespread disinformation, we should want to know whose story we’re
getting.

Whose biases are at
play? When we read the wall labels next to a display of
colonial-era artifacts at the British Museum, for example, are we
taking in a sanitized version of bloody realities, and not the
objective truth? Does
the line-up of a contemporary art show favor artists who are pale
and male? And is that because the curator is, too?

Ostensibly, this is what the raging debate was all about. But
the heart of the problem actually lies elsewhere—and it has
everything to do with how we imagine curatorial work.

Until fairly recently, curating was a behind-the-scenes job, and in most
places, it still is. The majority of curators, especially at small
institutions with fewer resources, make checklists and sometimes
pack boxes. They arrange for shipping. They direct art handlers.
This invisible work fits neatly with Needham’s analogy of editorial
work. The curator, in
most historical instances, stood in the background to foreground
the work he or she was showing, be it ancient Assyrian lamassu
to the paintings of Van Gogh. The culture or the artist got the
credit, just as the writer gets the byline.

But quite suddenly in recent
years, the role of the curator—and specifically the contemporary
art curator—has shifted, in part because of changes in the politics
of labor. These days, people are much more anxious to be recognized
for their work, especially in fields where prestige and reputation
are currency. In the art world, reputation-building is done in
part through press coverage. When a curator is named in an exhibition
review, it opens up doors for future work—and future remuneration.
This is the gig economy at work, and independent curators
especially thrive economically on the opportunities and security
afforded by name recognition. 

Some curators have spun entire careers from this newfound
reality. The most obvious example is Hans Ulrich Obrist, who would
never be who he is if we believed his first responsibility was to
quietly stand around directing art handlers. Whatever it is he
actually does when organizing a show, that’s not what you imagine
it to be.

Curators like him are game-changers. They have redefined how we
perceive the “authors” of contemporary art shows. For a certain
(admittedly small, but certainly influential) sector of the public,
his name is enough of a draw to bring them to an exhibition, even
if they’ve never heard of the artists involved. An Obrist affair is no ordinary art
show. He is the star; and he attracts star artists to
revolve around him.

That’s what many of the curators who were frustrated with
Needham imagine for themselves, whether they admit it or not. They
want their names checked because the conditions of curatorial work
have changed. To be unnamed is to be unseen in an economy that
thrives on visibility. And if we imagine curators simply unpacking
boxes, they’ll likely be out of sight, out of mind, and very likely
a buck poorer.

Ultimately, this Twitter storm
is about a new generation of curators telling people like Needham
to get with the times. A curator, post-Obrist, is a visionary—or,
at least that’s what he or she imagines. They argue that their
exhibitions are urgent and necessary because they urgently and
necessarily need to be recognized. It affects their bottom
line.

The post A Guardian Arts Editor Sparked a Furor by
Suggesting Curators Don’t Need to Be Named in Reviews. Here’s
What’s Really at Stake appeared first on artnet
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