Introduction by Marc Bembekoff
Moderators: Damien Airault and Estelle Nabeyrat
Speakers:
“Curatorial Pratices: Historicization and Mutations”: Jens Hoffmann, Vinicius Spricigo, Natalia Valencia
“Contexts, Orders and Reconfiguring the Margins”: Jean-Marc Avrilla, Sonia Dermience, Tobi Maier
“Economic and Intellectual Tools”: Antonia Alampi, Cécile Bourne-Farrell, Olivier Marboeuf, Jason Waite
In partnership with the Palais de Tokyo and as part of the Nouvelles Vagues season, offering an ideal context for focussing attention, C-E-A / Commissaires d’exposition associés (Associated Exhibition Curators) will launch, on June 22, 2013, a third public session dedicated to examining curatorial practices. Taking advantage of the presence in Paris of international curators, this new meeting is articulated on the deep underlying issues revealed within the sharp repolarization in the world of contemporary art currently taking place.
This fresh cycle organized around three round tables follows up on two events that C-E-A / Commissaires d’exposition associés had already spearheaded at the Carré Baudouin Pavilion (2009) and at the Ricard Foundation (2011).
Established in 2007, the association C-E-A is a platform for exploring, promoting, and organizing events around the professional identity of the exhibition curator.
“Curatorial Pratices: Historicization and Mutations”
If the publication of many books has contributed these past years to affirming curating as a discipline in its own right and has helped to shape its contours to some extent, it has also enabled a wider circulation of its main concerns and those of its professionals, among which its historicization. At the same time, globalization has brought about the reevaluation of the Western-centric view of this history under construction, as well as its key figures, as shown by the work of Brazilian curator Walter Zanini who was a contemporary of Harald Szeemann. Starting from this premise, three curators and researchers are invited to share elements of their findings and expose their points of view.
“Contexts, Orders and Reconfiguring the Margins”
Self-managed entities, art centers, art galleries, and even biennales… so many exhibition spaces and formats available to curators – whose ranks have swelled considerably in recent years. Despite the potential offer, and in this now very competitive professional sector, art-dedicated spaces decide on the curator according to very specific criteria that the curator must fulfill as closely as possible.
In this context, how do curators recalibrate their investigative scope and their projects?
How does the exhibition context take part in the exhibition conception process? And what space is left for a personal curating style favoring an experimental dimension or risk-taking (even subversive approaches), for example?
This round table brings together the points of view of exhibition curators who have had the opportunity of working in such situations. Both independent curators or curators working within institutions will share their experiences and perspectives.
“Economic and Intellectual Tools”
Experimenting, affirming a position, or exploring unusual registers in the art world is often challenging, at a time when the curating profession is somewhat threatened. In response to this, some professionals created their own work tools and media: events, permanent and temporary structures, mobile projects, etc.
This round table further examines a practical aspect touched on in the previous debate and brings together curators who have personally experienced it. On this occasion, the economic aspect that necessarily underlies their projects will also be addressed.