What is curatorial practice?

The word “curator” has been used a lot. One curates a gallery. One curates a museum. One even curates a coffee shop. I thought I knew what that word meant, but I was wrong, at least according to Portland’s Museum of Contemporary Craft curator Namita Gupta Wiggers. During a lively Kaffeeklatsch February 5, 2008, Wiggers passionately stated that curation is more than hanging or placing art. It is a process that includes the history, artist collaboration, and community. 

Specifically mentioned was the fiasco at the Mass MoCA, where Christoph Buchel’s installation was never completed, and a lawsuit, filed by Mass MoCA, to show what was there, just stirred the pot. Usually a museum’s curator goes about his or her work quietly, and the show opens, and everything is nice. However, in Boston, things got way, way out of hand, and the project never happened, even after spending thousands of dollars, and winning the court case. In winning, Mass MoCA also lost a lot of support from the arts community. It is an amazing saga that won’t go away, and one that is a lesson for artists and curators.

You can see a video of what could have been at http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2007/10/21/dismantled/