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© Marie Fraser, 2005. Used by permission
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Keywords:
Exhibit as platform
by Marie Fraser
Date: 02 December 2005
Event: Toronto
Marie Fraser
Marie Fraser is an art historian and independent curator. In the past few years, she has published a number of articles dealing with urban tales and experiences, including the notions of private and public space, of memory, community and democracy. As an independent curator, she organized several exhibits within urban and public spaces: La demeure / Dwelling (2002), Gestes d'artistes / Artists Gestures (2001) in collaboration with Marie-Josée Lafortune, La cueillette / Gathering (1998) and Sur l'expérience de la ville (1997), in collaboration with Diane Gougeon and Marie Perrault. She is also curating the exhibit raconte-moi / tell me, currently showing at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and, starting in June 2006, at the Casino Luxembourg - Forum d'art contemporain. She teaches at the Université de Montréal and the Université du Québec à Montréal.
Abstract
Based on my practical experience and theoretical considerations, I intend to demonstrate that various types of current artistic intervention push back the boundaries of the art exhibit, thus profoundly altering the curator's role and engagement.
By occupying public spaces beyond the arts institutions - such as urban territory - these practices force us to rethink our concept of the art exhibit, both in terms of form and content. The presentation of art is radically altered when it is confronted with phenomena such as urban dispersion, mobility and transitivity, when the factual and often anonymous nature of the works make the recognition of art more tenuous, when art and non-art intersect, or when art becomes a social interstice.
Using recent examples, my presentation will focus on exhibits which stray from the arts system in favor of different spaces, as a means of getting closer to reality, to the everyday experience, to life and to people.
Such exhibits have the potential to become public spaces, spaces for negociation, a type of platform. If they are considered as a form of resistance to power and institutions, do they not also force us to rethink the curator's role, his commitments and work methods? Would we then not be faced with a more committed curatorial concept, one that extends beyond the strict artistic scope in order to embrace more political considerations?