The Exhibitionists

But who or what is a curator? How does one become one? What does a curator actually do?

The curator has been likened to a midwife,who helps birth the idea that an artist has,dresses it up and then presents it to the world. In most instances today,an art exhibition is led or themed by a curator,and the artist works closely with the curator to realise the idea. An example of this would be curator Shaheen Merali’s recent show in Delhi’s Gallery 320 titled “Public Enemy No. 1” in which artists made works that took off from the theme: for instance,Sunil Padwal painted a woman in a burqa on the floor at the gallery entrance; you either had to step on it or over it. Again,in 2008,Veer Munshi and Hoskote,both Kashmiri Pandits,worked on the idea of abandoned homes of Pandits in Kashmir for a show at the Tao Art Gallery in Mumbai. They travelled together to Kashmir to photograph the houses. The show was a synthesis of Hoskote’s verse and Munshi’s images. Hoskote,41,says his criterion of a successful curatorial venture is simple. “It has more to do with the richness of practice. One has to have something significant to say,rather than just get an MA degree as a curator,” he says.

Hoskote,who is curating the first exhibition that will represent Indian modern and contemporary art at the Venice Biennale in May,says he first called himself a curator only in 1993 for an exhibition,“Hinged by Light’’,because he had put in a significant amount of intellectual work and research into it. Before that,he felt that he had only organised shows.

The curator also mentors an artist and can influence his career. In two defining exhibitions,“Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis” at Tate Modern in London in 2001,and “SubTerrain: artworks in the Cityfold” at the House of World Cultures,Berlin,2003,Geeta Kapur showcased the works of Atul Dodiya,Jitish Kallat and Sharmila Samant,propelling them onto the international stage.

In Europe and the US,curatorial practice began at state institutions like museums and private collections. The independent curator gained popularity in the 1950s,with people like Harald Szeemann and Walter Hopps. While the Indian approach of not being located only within academia and institutions gives room for innovation,it also allows many fly-by-night dealers to slip into the works. “Every system can be abused but discerning viewers and gallery owners can tell the dedicated people from those in it to make a quick buck,” says Hoskote.

Before curatorships and study programmes were put in place,curating as a field did not exist in India. It was more a DIY approach. The curator oversaw everything: from the framing of the artwork to their place on the gallery walls. “Curating remained in a grey zone for a long time,” says artist Vivan Sundaram,whose curatorial work has been mainly for Sahmat. “In 1985,I organised an exhibition called “Seven Young Sculptors”. It was preceded by an artist camp in Kausauli. I made a selection from the works produced there. It was a turning point. Now,in hindsight,I can say that I actually curated that show,” he says. His partner and fellow art practitioner Geeta Kapur is often hailed as the high priestess of art history criticism and curatorship; she too consciously used the word curator in 1990 for an exhibition she curated at the National Gallery of Modern Art.

If more attention is being paid to curatorship now,the reasons are institutional.

“Programmes to study curatorial practice are being created with the hope that people can be absorbed into global and local institutions,like museums,” says Hoskote. That is perhaps why it made sense for Arshiya Lokhandwala,who ran a small gallery in Vile Parle in Mumbai in the 1990s,to invest in her practice. She left the gallery scene for curatorial studies in Germany and at Goldsmith’s,University of London,and returned last year to open a bigger gallery in Mumbai. “By that logic I missed the boom in art,I also missed the crash and I have returned at a very exciting time,” she says.

Increasingly,the curator now sets the parameters of how to view artists,and recommends to collectors and viewers alike,who the artists to look out for are. Oindrilla Maity and Gitanjali Dang,who are a part of the GenNext of curators,took part in a curatorship program conceptualised by India Foundation for the Arts and Khoj this September. While Maity’s project,“Tracing a Human Trail”,was about a community that fled to the outskirts of Kolkata from riot-hit Bangladesh,Dang chose the shopping mall as the new stage for art. Her exhibition was playfully titled “Shikaar: The Hunt”. It invited people visiting the mall to grab a pamphlet with a few clues on it that would lead them on a treasure hunt to an artwork. “Following the human race’s prehistoric occupation of hunting and gathering,‘Shikaar: The Hunt’ played on the new strain of hunters and gatherers who stalk the malls,” says Dang,known for her Duchamp-like sense of irreverence and her penchant for anti-art exhibitions. As Sundaram points out: “Gitanjali sometimes functions more like an artist in the way she authors exhibitions. In that sense,she is very much part of the art rather than just being behind the scenes.”

The curator in India is also often someone who is polyvalent. So you have critic-curator,artist as curator,gallery owner as curator,and so on. Says Natasha Ginwala,a young curator currently part of the curatorial programme at De Apple Arts Centre in Amsterdam: “Curators are hybrid creatures. They play multiple roles — navigators,composers and storytellers.”