Music, Curation, and the End of the Avant-Garde

"Curationism: How Curating Took Over the Art World and Everything Else" 

by David Balzer

Photography By Amanda Chain

2 May 2015

I rarely get to these coffee house lectures anymore, so I was so pleased to get a ticket for the debate on Music and Curation (and I use capitals for a reason).

When I walked in to Brilliant Corners I had absolutely no idea what to expect. Part of me figured I would be slightly outcast. Nerd at heart with a desire to be a curator one day despite the spiteful reputation they tend to have among artists. This debate, although somewhat cynical in nature raised many valid points and many more questions than could be answered.

Hosted by Pluto Press, the debate was chaired by David Balzer, the author of Curationism: How Curating Took Over the World of Art and Everything Else. There were three other speakers: Frances Morgan, deputy editor of The Wire magazine; Salomé Voegelin, artist and author; and Adam Harper, a music critic. Each were coming from different angles within the industry, and tried to incorporate each other's angles a nuances.

The opening debate surrounded the issue of what is curating? At what point do we call ourselves curators rather than creators and how does that influence music. Of course value and a sense of professionalism come with the connotation of curator, but this is based on pre-conceived notions on what a curator is. There is a sense of authority, and Ms. Voegelin was adamant about this role as an unnecessary one. My favorite analogy she used was that "Because I'm making a salad and people have used carrots and tomatoes does it mean I'm curating a salad, no, I'm creating it." As valid as this may be, it did sit uneasy with me. There should always be a sense of acknowledging the work of others that you then use and to appreciate how they have helped in the creating process. If I were to attempt that sort of outlook in academia or literature I would be deemed a plagiarist and rightly so.

There is a sense however, that curating is simply a fancy word for picking. Is a curator simply there to put the pieces on display and the viewer sit passively by? No there is of course a negotiation and dialogue going on and the responsiveness of the viewer is imperative. I'd like to think of the curator as a communicator. Someone who's job is to make clear the meaning of the work.

I found that the more museums I go to, the more I appreciate a well-curated exhibit. There is a fine balance that requires a mediation of knowledge to take place. Yes, as Ms. Voegelin asserted curating is a socio-political activity, and the sooner museums realize how much is at stake in that relationship of the dialogue the better we as absorbers of culture are. Balzer as he writes in his book, curating has a long history within western history and there is nothing new about the concept, however the process has to evolve with the time. We must escape the colonial narrative that most national museums have, and begin to adopt a new globalized, post-modern perspective.

So in the end did we answer the question does the Avant-Garde still exist? Well to be honest, this was only an afterthought of the debate. As Mr. Harper noted, there is a lot of historical baggage with the term and there are many ways of saying the same thing. Is anything ever new? Aren't the counter-culturalists just finding more from our past and making it contemporary? To be fair, I think there is something to be said about hybridization and blending of works to make something new and different. That is essentially how the genre of Hip Hop began bringing it with it a new dimension of popular culture and avant-garde-ism.

However, as this debate raised many questions and concerns for me as a wannabe curator. However, in the end I find the same to be true. With any position of communication and authority there must be an awareness of that role and an attempt to make it as participatory and educated as possible. For now I leave you with this question: Should we have curators at all, or are we just closing ourself off from a world of possibilities from the disorganized chaos they try to organize for us?