It turns out that holding a BA and, subsequently, an MA from any of the Ivy League art schools around the western world makes you a real curator. The legend narrates that defining ourselves as curators is a prerogative for personalities working with collections, displays, and assemblages of artworks. But the museum collection is no longer the appointed space for curators, both due to the multitude of professionals working within the field, and due to the urgency of differentiating the outputs of a non-standard curatorial practice.
I can feel the necessity of finding different channels for the curatorial activity.
In my life, although short in its duration, I have seen curated biennales, curated exhibitions, curated project-room exhibitions, curated panels, curated public programmes, curated educational programmes, curated fashion collections, curated playlists, curated clubnights, curated magazines, curated shop windows, and I am pretty sure I will have the time to see any other curated things.
This is not criticism toward over professionalism, and neither is scepticism in understanding how the role of the curator is transforming.
In a way, we are all there, sitting in front of the laptop, exulting for every line added to the CV. And at the end of the day, we have to apply for calls, proposals and everything else, and hopefully get an honorarium for that.
It is simple, if a curator cannot work with a collection or with a selected group of artists and art works, it appears obvious that he has to find the space to work.
I am perfectly conscious of the difficulties of practicing as a contemporary art curator, but on the other hand I feel sincerely worried about how much 2010s contemporary art panorama is totally based on legitimation, meaning the identification of a certain actor as established, relevant in a specific field of action. Thus, the process of name-circulation becomes more important than the actual coherence and strength of a curatorial statement.