05/07/2018 Aureo Guilherme Mendonça
What is subjectively expressed does not need to
resemble the expressing subject. In many
instances what is expressed will be precisely
what the expressing subject is not; subjectively,
all expression is mediated by longing.
Theodor W. Adorno
It is certainly not the role of the curator to decipher the enigmas of the works he receives to assemble the exhibitions. This is the task that is up to all individuals who enjoy that space when it is opened to the public. Much has been speculated about the importance of curation within a broader discussion of contemporary art, its effective contributions and possible unhealthy interference. The main point revolves around a basic question: does curators induce the public to reach certain effective considerations? Or do people have their autonomy respected to make their own considerations about the works exhibited? My concern here is of another order. Parodying the terrible quarrel in our educational field, I would also ask: can we speak of an “art not politically oriented”? Baudelaire, in the mid-nineteenth century, insisted that this was impossible, and stated that the artist, as well as the critic, had an obligation to assume his role as a citizen of the world.
For Baudelaire it is beyond doubt that the critic must first assume his role in the world, make choices, fall in love with his convictions, even politics – anti-bourgeois, preferably – so that his gaze can see beyond common sense. (…) An anathema to his contemporaries for being a prophet of a healthier humanity from the ethical and aesthetic point of view, art criticism is deeply indebted to this insubordinate thought of Baudelaire. If Kant represented the philosophical turn, the French poet was the very embodiment of this modernity of aesthetic ideas. (MENDONÇA, 2005, pp. 37/38*)
In this way, it is very difficult to expect the curator not to be imbued with a particular line of thought when he starts the planning of an exhibition. There is a theme, an idea, a commitment to life that underlies every detail of this meticulous work of curation. Neutrality does not exist here because it is unacceptable in a world that demands of people a position in face of the unjust and unequal reality that we observe throughout the planet and especially in our increasingly troubled country. To be a healer is to know how to tune the strings of this instrument, letting them glimpse the meaning of works without revealing them explicitly.
Contemporary art, by its very nature, already establishes the conditions for its unveiling to the public. The objects exhibited are a resonance, or a dissonance, of fragments of the world that are resting in some part of our unconscious. The curator must be able to articulate these objects in such a way that the interaction of the public allows a productive dialogic relationship to be established, bringing transformative effects on all those affected by the key idea of curatorial work.
This is the mediation that we consider to be fundamental in the work of curatorship and, in this sense, the curator actually enters in the circuit being an effective part of the work. The arrangement of works in the exhibition space does not mean manipulation upon the eyes of others, but a set of suggestions to activate the ability to look critically at each one. I insist on affirming that the role of the curator is getting increasingly more important for the expansion in the process of reception of contemporary art. If we aim to increase the art-oriented audience, then we must feed the courses oriented to a good curator formation.
*Free traduction
References:
. ADORNO, Theodor W. Teoria estética. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1988.
. BAUDELAIRE, Charles. Sobre a modernidade. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1996.
. __________. Oeuvres completes. Paris: Robert Lafond, 2001.
. MENDONÇA, Áureo Guilherme. O labirinto do Brasil moderno – A crítica de arte de 1930 a 1950. Rio de Janeiro: UFRJ (Tese de doutorado), 2005.
