Project 2: Artist Platforms, Promotion and Documentation

Research Task: Personal Reference Points for Exhibition Strategies

“Consider bodies of work that your project aspires towards and look specifically at how these have been shown and presented. Make notes about strategies you wish to borrow or use in relation to your identified reference points.
Select images of 2-3 example projects and upload these to your learning log with contextual information and your reflections.”

Self-Reflection: Your Own Exhibition Strategies

“What are you trying to achieve with your showing strategies? Is there a narrative of some sort? Do you need to be in control of it? Using images, notes or other reference points from your own artist research, choose 2-3 relevant strategies that you can summarise on your learning log, use these to refer back to and share with your peer group.”

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I did my research on how various artists curated their shows. It is actually quite challenging to find a long, well-written article that describes their curation strategies in detail, so I can reflect on what I can borrow for my practice. However, unexpectedly, I approached this task from a more fundamental perspective, which is about the relationship between an artist and a curator, which is a starting point for any strategy an artist can follow and decide on.

Reading these articles, I placed the links below, which made me think that it would be appropriate to have in OCA’s curriculum an item dedicated to exploring this natural conflict between a curator and an artist, and investigating the limitations as well as the potential of this relationship. Any rising visual artist must be aware of this aspect of their professional career.

I found an interesting article on the Guardian website “Hans Ulrich Obrist: the art of curation” https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/mar/23/hans-ulrich-obrist-art-curator [accessed on July 12, 2025]; It was thought-provoking to read the following statement Hans Ulrich Obrist makes in the article:

“But there are dangers with curating. The Gesamtkunstwerk exhibition was very dense, very inspiring and interesting because of the danger that it became the Gesamtkunstwerk of the curator rather than of the artists. But for me, it was important to be close to artists and not subordinate their work to the curator’s vision.”

I hadn’t considered this aspect of the relationship between a curator and an artist before. Indeed, not always are artists understood by the curators who may have their own creative vision on the show and artworks, so this joint work can become a clash of egos. It is easy for me to imagine myself having his kind of problem because I tend to have strong opinions and I am used to taking a leadership role in life, as well as I feel entitled to make the last decision about my artworks in the curatorial process.

This article contains Yoko Ono‘s words about how she curates her shows, even if she collaborates with a curator:

“When I do a show, I’m hands on. I almost do the whole thing myself. Over the course of my career I’ve been lucky to work with many creative curators. Their role is to give me protection and encouragement. Not in the sense of changing what I do, but allowing me to do what I want to do. They have helped me to understand what I like.“

Philippe Parreno shares his impressions about a particular show which was curated in an original way in terms of the venue and staged viewers’ experience in detail:

“I was really influenced by early shows at the Pompidou, particularly Les Immatériaux, curated by Jean-François Lyotard in 1985. …
Lyotard created an open structure, a maze with one entrance and one exit, but multiple pathways through it. Walls were not solid structures but grey webs stretching from floor to ceiling. Visitors wore headphones and listened to radio transmissions that faded in and out as they moved through the exhibition. Such fluid non-linearity exemplified the very conditions of immateriality central to the show’s argument.” (“Hans Ulrich Obrist: the art of curation” https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/mar/23/hans-ulrich-obrist-art-curator [accessed on July 12, 2025]

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Another engaging article I have found and read is “Being Curated” by Dan Fox, 13 Apr 2013 on the Frieze website https://www.frieze.com/article/being-curated [accessed on July 12th 2025]; The author “invited eight artists and artist groups to reflect on their relationships to curators and curatorial discourse.” The author examines the rise of “curatorial” phenomena in the art industry and finds the unhealthy dynamic of excessive power curators have now on art and artists. This is what he says:

“For the most part, the conversation about curating has largely been dominated by curators. …This does not strike me as the healthiest situation. (Then again, junior curators at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in the 1950s probably thought the same about the omnipotent critics of their day.) Yes, there are exceptions, and yes, I am generalizing. Of course, I’m not the first to have wondered what the implications of the growth of curatorial power are for artists. Curators – like critics – are nothing without art, no matter what the most meta-inclined of curatorial theorists might argue.“

Actually, I find Dan Fox’s writing so good and worth quoting, because he articulates the problem of curating and the art industry so precisely and eloquently:

“ In 1972, Daniel Buren published a short statement titled ‘Exposition d’une exposition’ (Exhibiting Exhibitions) in the catalogue for Documenta V, in which he complained that: ‘The subject of exhibitions tends more and more to be not so much the exhibition of works of art, as the exhibition of the exhibition as a work of art.’ Buren’s text (in its 1992 English translation) prefaces this survey, for which we asked a small selection of artists to respond to the following questions: how do they feel about their role in the discourses of curating? What do they think about their work being placed in themed exhibitions or biennials, or in the context of new exhibition formats and experiments in display? Are they happy to engage in dialogue with curators when shaping exhibitions, or do they feel instrumentalised, their work put at the service of someone else’s interests? And how do artists who curate – and there are many – feel about their position in relation to professional curators?”

I am glad I have found this article which made me aware of this problem:

“Since that time, in terms of group exhibitions, to my eyes everything has come adrift. It’s almost grotesque to see how exhibitions are increasingly becoming opportunities for an organizer or a curator or whoever to write an essay which usually has nothing to do with the artists invited, but concerns only his or her philosophy about art and society, politics or aesthetics. Exhibitions focus increasingly univocally on who makes the show, and we can see that the artists chosen to ‘illustrate’ his/her theory are mainly the same from one exhibition to the next. So the very same works are, show after show, illustrating extremely different themes or theories, without any problem. In fact, and this is quite reassuring, no one cares – starting with the artists themselves – about the discourse produced by these exhibition organizers. The only ones who pay attention to and speak about the organizers are the organizers themselves, or art critics who don’t speak about the artists in the exhibition so much as about the organizer, perhaps dreaming secretly to be an organizer of exhibitions themselves.“

The author incorporates the “curator-artist” experiences of eight artists, which was a smart move. For me, as an art student, it was revelatory, sincere, and genuine, allowing me to easily connect with these artists’ emotions and judgments. These experiences range from drastically different: from deep appreciation of the curator’s ideas and total satisfaction, to complete frustration. I noted one particular comment from Tom Nicholson (photographer, 1973-), who emphasised how important is the art writing aspect:

“On the other hand, in the published written responses to themed shows or biennials, I think there is often a subsuming of the art work to curatorial authorship. I guess this partly arises from the shorthand involved in the word-length limitations in reviewing. I suspect it is also because writers are sometimes also curators or, in some wider sense, peers of curators, and it often feels like the writing addresses curatorial structures or devices rather than the singularity of art works. On several levels I regard this as a problem, not least in that it flattens what an art work is or can be, the way that art works unsettle our taxonomies and preconceptions rather than illustrating them.” (“Bein Curated”, Dan Fox, https://www.frieze.com/article/being-curated; [accessed on July 12th, 2025]

As Tom Nicholson brought up a very relevant point, it is the curator who ultimately decides what text will be included in exhibition marketing materials. Since the curator is often the author of most texts, there is a real danger of curatorial dictatorship. The artist can be excluded at this level. As a beginner, I had never considered this aspect of my professional career in visual art, although it is essential to be aware of it. This awareness can help build a productive relationship with a curator, as well as prevent professional mistakes. Now I understand that any visual artist has to well understand the curator’s artistic and personal agenda, so he/she ensure that their creative visions and aspirations are well aligned.

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I have read an opinion of Isobel Harbison, who wrote for the Frieze website (23.04.2015) “The Art of Curating” https://www.frieze.com/article/art-curating on the problem of “personal process of exhibition making”. The article is written differently from Dan Fox’s writing style, so I had to reread it to understand the author’s point, which was super relevant to this part of my SYP course with OCA, and I was particularly keen on grasping it.

The article examines a recent trend: artists are increasingly assuming the role of curator in group exhibitions. The author refers to several exhibitions in London that have been curated by artists, allowing them to shape shows with their own artistic perspectives.  There is a notable counter-trend, as the author contrasts this with a show that did not follow the artist-as‑curator trend, opting instead for a conventional curator-led format. As a result of the trend when artists curated their own shows, Isobel Harbison outlines the folwloing:

• New artistic roles: When artists curate, the exhibition becomes more like an extension of their art practice. Traditionally, curators decide which works are shown and how.
• Creative agency: It gives artists control to redefine meaning and context, not just through their art, but through how artworks are exhibited. Now, artists are stepping into that curatorial role—choosing and arranging artworks, including their own.
• Re-signification: Curating becomes a creative act: exhibitions are like “self-contained artworks” in themselves.  

The key idea is that this “artist=curator” trend challenges traditional boundaries between artist and curator, and makes exhibitions themselves a form of artistic expression.

This article was relevant to my research on other artists’ curatorial strategies because it describes in detail how different artist curated their shows, taking the show to a new, very liberal and surprising height. For example:

“A recent exhibition by London- and Hamburg-based artist Than Hussein Clark, ‘The Violet Crab’, at David Roberts Art Foundation (DRAF) reinvented the space as the setting for a cabaret club. The gallery was configured into a series of rooms – from cloakroom, bar and VIP room to shadow theatre and front- and back-stage areas. Clark’s sculptures, influenced by aspects of Kabuki theatre and surrealist aesthetics, functioned as furniture and, along with a selection of more than 60 artworks from DRAF’s own collection, set up the mise en scène for cabaret evenings, which took place over the course of exhibition.“(The Art of Curating, Isobel Harbison, 23 Apr 2015, Frieze, online on https://www.frieze.com/article/art-curating [accessed on July 12, 2025]

The above is just one example of how brave and unconventional artists can be in curating their shows: reconstructing their studio and living room spaces for the exhibition, arranging a vast array of thrift shop items, placing their artworks around old fabrics and rugs, antique items, and emptied supermarket herb bags.

So the author wonders:

“This indecorous mix raised the question: why aren’t more curatorial endeavours this entertainingly cavalier? Given that DRAF has an extensive collection and resources, does it really need to invite guest artist-curators to justify taking curatorial liberties? ..The press materials for each of these exhibitions headlined the artist and sidelined the in-house curators. Why are artists celebrated for making instinctive choices about what unusual company art­works can keep, while curators are expected to adhere to accepted taxonomies? The difference is, perhaps, one of legitimacy, where daredevil subjective choices attest to artistic genius, while informed decisions prove the curator’s wisdom. But why, I wonder? How can we still presume that most exhibitions are, and should be, underpinned by objective logic when curators, as much as any of us, are guided by their own deeply personal responses to work?”

Interestingly, the author uses the word “indecorous“, which carries negative semantics. All cases of artists’ curations she mentioned in the article, she found not to be a manifestation of good taste; moreover, she considers them inappropriate, unsuitable – one of the synonyms for “indecorous” is “improper”. The art critic points a polemical note to Dan Fox’s, who highlighted in his article above the opposite to ” …The press materials for each of these exhibitions headlined the artist and sidelined the in-house curators.” Isobel Harbison wonders why there is a double standard in the industry: when the artists make bold, extravagant, risky decisions (those “daredevil subjective choices”) people see it as a sign of “artistic genius”; at the same time when art curators make decisions about how to show case the artworks, people expect them to be informed and scholars to prove theor wisodm and knowledge. I think Isobel Harbinson’s wonder is an invitation to a philosophical debate about why artists are absolutely welcome and praised for the extended creativity they bring to curating their showcases, and whether there are any boundaries for that extended creativity. Should the art critics/art curators claim the same rights for such an unlimited creative approach when they curate art shows? It seems to me that the author claims the same rights for pursuing and revealing the bold, creative curatorial idea, aiming to eliminate the double standard in the art industry, when the curators are strictly judged while the artists are always praised for their “artistic genius”. In the very last sentence of her article, she appeals to art curators:

“To employ one’s subjectivity as a curator should no longer overstep any ethical boundary or professional code – to reflect on why, how and for whom we ‘like’ stuff is a political choice and, I would argue, a critical necessity.”

Here, the author firmly appeals to her colleagues—art critics and curators— to reveal their individual agendas while curating art shows; she finds it both appropriate and necessary. This is an exciting moment for me, because I wonder what I would do if my vision were significantly different from the curator’s, organising the show in which my artworks participate. In this collaboration of an artist and a curator, who should take a more submissive and compromising role? I consider this aspect to be a primary strategic decision any artist faces when curating her/his show.

P.S.: After conducting this research, I have come to appreciate the Frieze platform, as it brings polar opinions to its audience.

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