Anna Fafaliou Sleep (2016). Photo: Benedict Johnson, courtesy of the artist and Nahmad Projects, London.
Are curators a dying breed in the contemporary art world?
I think we are like 'painting' always on the verge to be declared dead but still quite alive. To create a good painting is very, very hard. The same can be said about being a good curator. It's very hard not to become a parody of ourselves, our own Robert De Niro, playing De Niro, who's playing De Niro. Just naturally be yourself. Maybe that's the secret to not becoming extinct?
Has the rise of the so-called “star curators' prevented young, emerging curators from coming through?
I don't think so. I assume I am, or I was considered a star curator. People like Massimiliano Gioni, Gary Carrion Murayari, Cecilia Alemani, Margot Norton and maybe a few others came out of my practice thanks to their own talent. If you are good you will be good no matter who's in front of you. If you are bad you will always be bad, even if you have an empty motorway in front of you. I had ahead of me a generation of star assholes a wall of power hungry egomaniacs and I think I did okay anyway. I can't complain. I was also lucky.
Do you think that art audiences today have less appreciation for thoughtful, and well curated exhibitions?
No I think art audiences have expanded immensely over the last 25 years so the challenge for us to be accessible is huge. Once as curators we were preaching to the converted. Whoever dared to say that an empty shoe box in a museum was a joke was considered an imbecile. Today if you are not able as a curator to articulate in a comprehensible language why the shoe box is a masterpiece YOU are the imbecile. So I don't think it is the fault of the audience if they reject certain obscure encrypted exhibitions or works of art. If you are sincerely thoughtful people will think along with you.
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