Curating the Artist-run Space: Exploring strategies for a critical curatorial practice

摘要

The once distinct roles of artist and curator have blurred dramatically in recent decades owing to ablending process in both directions, which has led to a turn towards the concept of the curator asproducer and author, and the development of the hybridised figure of the ‘artist-curator’. Within mypractice-based curatorial research at Meter Room and Grey Area, the 'artist-run space', as bothform and content of space, is used as a critical framework for artist-curatorship.Artist-run spaces play a significant role in the cultural ecology of the UK, and this project exploresthe power relations involved in the production, distribution, and consumption of work within thefield, in terms of both a cause and effect of a contested relationship with institutions andcommercial galleries. Artist-run spaces are initiated for a number of reasons, but this projectspecifically focuses upon those spaces that identify with terms such as ‘independent’, 'alternative',‘not-for-profit’, ‘DIY’, ‘self-organised’, and ‘critically engaged’.Using strategies for the development of a critical practice, such as Chantal Mouffe’s theories on‘counter-hegemony’ and ‘agonistic space’ (2007), and Gerald Raunig's concept of 'instituentpractice' (2009), this project explores how curatorial practices within artist-curator-run spaces mightoffer different ways of working, and be used to contest hegemonic structures within the field. Iexplore the role of critique within curatorial practice, specifically in relation to the struggle forautonomy, the production of subjectivity, and strategies for negating or resisting cooption by theNew Institutions of post-Fordist neoliberalism.Three curatorial strategies were developed from experimental projects at both spaces, and thenexplored at Meter Room over a 2-year period. These strategies sought to occupy institutionalstructures in new ways: through the re-functioning of 'void' space, blending studio and galleryfunctions within a Curatorial Studio, developing a paracuratorial practice referred to as Caretaking,and re-approaching the concept of a collection-based institution through processes of layeringworks and their vestiges within an Artist-run Collection. The practice-based research culminated ina 5-month durational project in collaboration with five other artist-run spaces based in the WestMidlands region, which explored a strategy for the creation of a new speculative artist-runinstitution as a dialogical process of instituting values through a critical curatorial practice.