Posts Tagged ‘curation’

This paper documents the curation of the Dreams of Progress exhibition that was held at the Westminster Reference Library in July 2009. The theme of the video art exhibition was Utopia and Progress. It included a philosophical debate and a children’s workshop. It is now available online on the Curated Matter website. The exhibition in its physical form remained confidential but was very well received by its visitors and generated exciting new thoughts on Utopia and Progress. The philosophical debate attracted around 50 people from various backgrounds including professors, philosophical students, art curators and engineers. The children’s workshop introduced the theme of progress to around twenty children. The exhibition and its satellite activities were the results of six months of research and preparation, which is detailed below.

1. Choice of the theme and selection of the videos
2. Relation to the Westminster Reference Library
3. The exhibition space
4. Legends and introduction to the exhibition
5. Philosophical debate
6. Children’s Art Day
7. Online exhibition
8. Federate around the project

Introduction to the exhibition

The theme of Dreams of Progress did not come at once. Initially, I wanted to curate video projects related to optimism. Looking at the videos on the Internet, I felt there was an optimistic movement originating from young American artists. Many of their videos depict a positive and colourful world, made of human contacts and everyday pleasures. It may  be seen as a return to simple things after the an orgy of technology and “Bling-bling”. The movement seemed related to what I imagine being the flower power years. I was interested to understand if this optimism had anything new and unique or if it was just a constant noise that can be witnessed at any time. But I struggled to nail down videos explicitly about optimism. Search terms like ‘optimism’ and ‘happiness’ were not popular on video websites. I still believe the movement exists but it isn’t defined by the artists (at least not yet?). Is it appropriate for a curator to build an exhibition on a theme that none of the artists explicitly address?  Perhaps it is, but I wasn’t willing to go down this road for the exhibition.

When I could find videos explicitly about optimism, I began to wonder, is optimism still relevant nowadays? Are we optimistic today?  What is there to be optimistic about? I considered studying our ideas about dreams for the future, immediate or distant. I found by looking at search keywords like ‘future’ and ‘dream’ that many people are thinking positively about the future,  these people are classified as utopians. The notions remains that no positive future is really possible and positive people are considered unrealistic. I also noticed that many recent videos prefer to look at past visions of the future instead of the ones of today. Some videos question the dreams from previous generations, others are cynical or complacent.

After having navigated through many videos, I defined the final theme of the exhibition (this can be found on the press release). I was ready to curate the videos and began to research within literature. I did not plan to call for submissions as I felt this would impose my own views too heavily on potential artists. As explained in details in the mission statement of the Curated Matter venture, I also wanted to curate videos without knowing who made them in order to not be biased. As a result,  I didn’t know any of the artists before contacting them. They come from many backgrounds and are from around the world.

It became obvious to me very rapidly that I could not curate this exhibition without presenting also videos from corporations. They played a central role in past decades by articulating in images the utopias of their times. Some of the corporate videos have an artistic aspect and it seemed it artificial to reject them because they have been privately founded.

Next: Relation to the Westminster Reference Library

The theme of the Dreams of Progress exhibition and most of its videos have been set before I found the hosting venue. I still wanted to arrange the exhibition so that it links to its physical context, or at least doesn’t deny it. I first looked at the history of the Westminster Reference Library, which is well known for being built on the former house of Isaac Newton, Lord Macaulay famously stating saying that the home of Sir Isaac Newton would be “well known as long as our island retains any trace of civilisation”. I was tempted first to incorporate this reference to the description of the exhibition because it fits nicely with the theme of progress. Later, I found it diminishing. I felt that it was denying the current function of the building. I was then inclined to instrument the fact that the space is a library, its mission of education for all is a dream of progress by itself.  I decided after all to not introduce any connections with the library in the theme of the exhibition. What was much more tangible was the help from the staff of the library, which was felt by every visitor.  The Dreams of Progress exhibition was in this space because of the help of its staff and their utopian vision of what a library should be; it came from their own initiative, not a mission statement.

During the exhibition, the staff of the library displayed books related to the theme of Utopia and Progress, which I found marvellous.

Next: The exhibition space

The exhibition space

Setting an exhibition space within the reading room of the Westminster Art Reference Library is a very exciting opportunity but also a big challenge. It must not disturb the daily activities of the library but still make enough of an impact and it should provide excellent conditions for the viewing of the videos. The tactic I opted for is to encourage a one-to-one experience between the viewers and videos by providing an intimate space where visitors can sit down and relax while looking at the videos. However, one of my responsibilities as a curator is to promote the art works exhibited in the space. I believe it is necessary to display physical signs of the importance that one attributes to a piece of art, in order that it is noticed and can be evaluated appropriately. The legends offered the perfect support to mark this statement. I hung them on the walls as if they were works of art themselves, they stood behind the television screens though so that were not the primary focal point. Instead, they signal, without imposing, to visitors that the videos are not randomly selected but artefacts worth careful attention.

The second decision I had to make was how to group the videos. The space and my budget did not allow one screen per work. It may not be suitable, as it would mean someone would have to change seats for each video, some of them last only a few minutes. So, how to group them? The case of the Microsoft video was simple, I got a separate dvd from Microsoft and so it had to be on a separate screen. The “Discovery of Magnetic North” video being the longer and most immersive one, I decided to play it alone on the only projector. I separated the rest of the videos in 3 groups:

• 3 utopians visions by corporations
• 2 artistic reactions to today’s ongoing progress along with a an original vision of the future. The 2 artistic reactions and the futuristic video are all colourful and entertaining.
• 3 artistic views at the past

Associating the videos this way creates a dialogue between the videos sequenced on each monitor but also between videos played at the same time on different screens, not far from each other. This dialogue purposively generates tensions and similarities.  Though the corporation videos are grouped on one side of the room, they were not isolated but well linked with other videos:  ‘Some things won’t change’ and  images of ‘Discovery of Magnetic North”  for example.

Interaction with visitors remain basic. They could add their email address to the guest book and take a program and flyer with them. I felt this was appropriate for an exhibition of this size. The philosophical debate and children’s workshop provided large enough spaces for dialogue.

Next: Legends and introduction to the exhibition

Corporate visions of the future

What to tell the visitor? Should I present him or her with my analysis of the videos or with descriptions from the artists? How much should I justify the curation of the exhibition? How much should he be free to discover his own interpretation of the videos and how much guidance does he need?

I decided for this exhibition to only display a short introduction to the theme of the exhibition and to let the artists introduce themselves their videos on short legends. The full description of the exhibition and its theme is on the internet for the visitors who want to know more.

The fact that the exhibition is advertised under the title ‘Dreams of Progress’ already modifies the perception that the visitors will have on the art works. Some of the artists didn’t even have this theme in mind when they made their video.  So, I wanted to equilibrate the exhibition by showing legends from artists themselves, so that visitors can understand the approach of the artist and have their own judgment on the connections between the videos and the theme of Progress.

I also reduced the introduction of the exhibition to an open, relatively short text in order to provide enough freedom for the public to make their own conclusions.  This came at a cost, some visitors did not recognise the connections that I thought were important between the videos. Although my studies on Utopia and Progress are implicitly used in the selection of the videos and the way I introduce the theme, it did not necessary challenge everyone’s perception on the subject. It is after all an elitist approach, giving the visitors a full description of all I intended to say would have been in a sense, more egalitarian, as everyone willing to spend time reading would have learned something. Relying on the capacity of the visitors to make their own analysis increases actually the gap between those having already ideas on the subject and those who don’t. That being said, you don’t need to know anything about Utopia and Progress to feel something looking at the videos. And again, my analysis is on the web, so anyone interested to learn more may do so.

One interesting question that emerged when writing the introduction of the exhibition was how to position the videos compared to literary masterpieces like Utopia by Thomas More or Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I could have connected the videos to previous work and inscribed them in a history of thoughts on Utopia. But I was determined to put the videos at the centre of the stage, rather than any reference. Some  of the video artists have probably not read or seen the previous works on Utopia, but this doesn’t mean they haven’t been influenced indirectly by the impact that the original utopian authors had on culture. I decided thus to add some references in the introduction to acknowledge past works on Utopia but to not draw any causal connection between them and the videos displayed at the exhibition.

Next: Philosophical debate

Philosophical debate on Utopia and Progress

Usually, philosophical debates are organised around a specific question and maybe some philosophical texts. In this case, I wanted to organise a philosophical debate around some of the videos of the exhibition. I knew that the theme of Utopia and Progress was too vast to be completely discussed, so I considered the debate to be an introduction to the subject. The purpose of the debate was to introduce the main aspects around Utopia and Progress, show some great videos related to the theme, to inspire the audience and to get them thinking more about the subject.

Next: Children’s Art Day at the WRF

Everyone listening at the story of the second group.

The main challenge for the storyboarding workshop of the Children’s Art Day was to organise an activity children enjoy but to still convey what the exhibition is about. The Design for Dreaming video worked very well because it was made originally for a family audience and a lot of what is happening is accessible for kids. It remains that the video is an utopian vision on consumerism from the 60s that children don’t have much the occasion to see.

I wanted initially to include the use of the Windows Movie Player software in the workshop. But it wasn’t possible in an hour, and the main focus was to teach how to collaboratively invent a storyboard.

Next: Online exhibition

I decided for the online version of the exhibition to follow the same structure than on the physical exhibition and to make one page per screen, showing all the videos that were displayed on the screen and showing exactly the same legends. Showing one video per page would have probably deconstructed too much the exhibition and undermined the dialogue I wanted to generate between videos. Putting all videos on one page would have been too long to digest on a single web page.

I added a link on each page to my own analysis of the videos. This way, only the visitors willing to know more about my perception of the videos, at the risk of altering their own judgement, can see the information.

Next: Federate around the project

The curatorial practice is not only about setting up the theoretical framework of an exhibition, writing and selecting artefacts. It is also about federating people around a project they understand is beneficial for them. Dreams of Progress was my first exhibition, it gave me the opportunity to gain experience on every front:

• Getting the permissions from artists to display their work and getting additional material. Overall, I got the permission to use all the work I wanted to use but the artists’ responsiveness was really varied. Some were excited about the project and very supportive, some had to be reminded many times before delivering their part.

• Getting permission from Microsoft and Squint/opera. This was very easy and I got all the help I needed in obtaining the dvds. Utopian visions from corporations generate a lot of criticism in the public but corporations seemed to be very open to discussion. This experience made me less cynical about their views as they make the first move after all.

• Finding a venue, the Westminster Reference Library, and then a sponsor for some the video equipment, Westminster Arts.
• Marketing the exhibition by sending the press release to art websites (it was featured on www.artrabbit.com and www.criticalnetwork.co.uk), distributing flyers to venues around the exhibition, putting posters in the Library.
• Marketing the philosophical debate by contacting the philosophical groups in London, philosophical colleges, members of the library, putting the event on facebook, upcoming, eventful.

The video ‘To New Horizons’ from General Motors (1940) depicts a high-tech world where novelty, efficiency and order are the main measures of success. It doesn’t show any people but only mega-structures and highways. The video is especially interesting because General Motors has been bankrupted just few months ago, after 79 years of activity. Could this be because its vision for the future was wrong or because GM failed to deliver it? After viewing the video, both of these statements could be true. GM already attempted to address environmental concerns, promising cities where people could breath fresh air. Something they didn’t deliver. GM planned to group buildings within a city according to their functions (offices, homes, factories). Constructing cities in this way has led to social disruptions which have been difficult to heal. I would compare the video to ‘Utopia’ by Thomas More, because both utopias are highly planned and focussed on efficiency. They both respond to the need to distribute a limited amount of resource (agriculture, jobs, energy) to everyone. In a sense, they are closer to socialism than contemporary utopias, where third world and poverty are often omitted in the high-tech aspirations for the future. One contradiction to notice in the video is the praise of both novelty and efficiency. By nature, reaching efficiency is a stable equilibrium that doesn’t like novelty, as novelty requires adaptations. A perfectly efficient world doesn’t need novelty.

The “Century 21 Calling” from AT&T (1964) advocates technological progress but does so by depicting middle class people and their domestic problems. Progress in science is justified because it can improve standards of living. Belief in technology serves as a way to avoid challenging the social rules of the USA in the 60s, e.g. the condition of women. The assumption is that technology will resolve everything anyway.  The Bell System, a national switchboard can manage connections between phones which in turn saved consumers time, energy and made their life easier. The switchboard is likened to an electronic brain. The idea that consumerism and technology will solve all of our problem dates back from the industrial revolution. It was an idea that was already well established at the 1900 World Fair of Paris (see the book Dreams of Peace and Freedom by Jay Winter). Consumerism and technology underpin the values behind Walt Disney World, built at around the same time (see the book  Vinyl Leaves by Stephen M. Fjellman). The AT&T video looks like a propaganda movie; the characters conform to the ideal of what America should look like. The “Century 21 Calling” may or may not be propaganda. It might have been expressed spontaneously by those having no interest in changing American ideals, or by the people without enough courage to reconsider their social framework.

“Future of Cities” from the Danish Royal Academy of Architecture (squint/opera, 2007) introduces themes related to libertarian socialism, environmentalism and post-modernism. The future looks like a collage of seemingly independent communities from diverse ethnicities and  cultural backgrounds. Sustainability and nature are at the centre of their social projects. However, the multiform buildings covered with trees and grass are massive. They could not possibly be built by a small community. Life and apparent organic disorder is actually planned and optimised. The video gives somehow the impression that big corporations are necessary in this global network of small communities. It may or may not be true. The end of the video includes a biblical reference to Noah’s Ark; it is worth noting that religion and mythology are a great source of utopias. Take the garden of Eden and the Hindu mythology for example. The “Future of Cities” video was very controversial at the philosophical debate held during the exhibition. Some people felt that its message was closer to a ‘human’ utopia, others thought it was not that different from the other visions and that its humanity was only superficial. Someone also directed me to Transition Towns which is indeed directly connected to the “Future of Cities” vision.

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• See the videos
• Curation of the exhibition