It seems written on stone that neither the two shall be allies even for the great big cause of Art. A chicken or egg debacle with the artists getting the upperhand mostly for being the reason why there are curators. But why are there curators really? Are they the misfit frustrated wanna-bes who didn't get in, who didn't get the grade? or were they the wandering flaneurs content with being dandy and bourgeoise lining up for movies, lining up for shows, lining up for wines, for the cocktails, lining up for the accolades and hell writing about all these things. At times even appearing snootily irritatedwhen they smell of freshly coated paint, quering even why so and so artist is using such and such brand of paint, why the canvas in not as closely knit, why it's not even framed. All these whys and what of the artist who have slaved away for the night for a smattering of spitum from these Cs.
Let us define then their similarities and difference and where each aces up against the other :
1. Artists get to travel on grants via residency grants or being invited to do work for a show which is very seldom.
Curators get to travel on study grants, seminar grants, fellowhsip grants, being part of the exhibit entourage, on a research grant. Plus they have more access when they want to go to different biennials, triennials, etc in the guise of being in the selection committee while the artist would have to be a) wealthy already to be able to afford these kind of trips or b) pretty thick-skinned to swallow all pride to plead to a curator to brown-bag him to these trips.
2. Artists, most of the time, are not good at writing sponsorship letters so he/she can go these kind of trips because he/she would rather do his/her own art project as it's his/her own very medium.
A Curator's skill and talent seem based on the gift of gab and glibness. Proposal letters, sponsorship letters are like toilet papers to them which they can fax away to anyone who'd care. They can even recycle these papers for a similarly-sounding project and still get away with it.
3. Artists read, read a lot of books and magazines, hear and tell stories for their works or to lay the foundation for their works. And they're very frank to say something as bullshit or crap when they something as that.
Curators read a lot too, including exhibit catalogues, letters, proposals. I'd think they read a hell lot more than artists as they usually are the ones who write the texts for exhibits. But they use instead a lot of jargon and theoretical terms to describe something that's crappy to them.
Hence, to curators, artists are dumb not to know such and such terms; to artists, curators are arrogant show-offs for spouting needlessly such and such terms.
4. If the dynamics of the art scene can be translated into a pyramid where the artists form the base, and the curators are at the tip, who do you think is more vital to such a structure's stability? Who has got more the upper hand? Who benefits more from such a dynamic? Is such a scheme conducive to a symbiotic relationship?
