ABSTRACT
Curating is arguably always time-based. Exhibitions open and close. They are temporarily tethered. They may be located in one place but they effectively reconfigure it, they oscillate it. Exhibitions are teeter events. Structural and systemic stasis are nevertheless endemic realities we are forced to grapple with. The imposed austerity and precarity pair looms large. This nefarious and debilitating pair has a deleterious effect on artistic and curatorial practices writ large, but especially those that have a critical backbone or attempt to innovate in ways that challenges set institutional parameters or audience expectations. Remaining nimble can be one way to thwart ossification. Becoming itinerant, even if only metaphorically, can inject fluidity in the otherwise stultifying rigidity of the routine scenario of yet-another curatorial output. The 12-year long curatorial project, You and I Are Water Earth Fire Air Of Life And Death, may best be described as a throughput, a polynode, a transient. Once a year, on December 12th from 12 noon to 12 midnight, it asks for 12 hours of your time. The 2025 edition will mark its halfway point. As the assembler of this slowtime-based curatorial project, there is no illusion that this event resolves or even palliates any of the vexed conditions outlined above. As an ongoing failed attempt however, it may contribute both pragmatic and utopic tenuous tenets to the conversation.
EXPANDED ABSTRACT
Curating is arguably always time-based. Time is always there. The thereness of time. By there I mean here, there, everywhere. Exhibitions open and close. They happen. The happeningness of exhibitions. They are temporarily tethered. The impermanence of exhibitions. How impertinent of them to come and go. They may be located in one place but they effectively reconfigure it, they oscillate it. They see-saw a place, (sometimes) until the place is unrecognizable even if only for a moment. Exhibitions are teeter events. They take over. They are (invited) guests. Most of the time, they are invited. Structural and systemic stasis are nevertheless endemic realities we are forced to grapple with. Heterotopic spaces of compromise. Exhibitions are stopgaps. The imposed austerity and precarity pair looms large. This nefarious and debilitating pair (austerity/precarity, but there are other pairs, other forces) has a deleterious effect on artistic and curatorial practices writ large, but especially those that have a critical backbone or attempt to innovate in ways that challenges set institutional parameters or audience expectations. Exhibitions are both the distractions from and the way out of creeping fascism and false narratives. They are both palliatives and revolutionary kernels. Remaining nimble can be one way to thwart ossification. Perhaps the only way. Though the agility of the runner is worthless if they are being chased, terrorized, villified, demonized, ignored, taunted, defunded, or entarte kunst-ed. Becoming itinerant, even if only metaphorically, can inject fluidity in the otherwise stultifying rigidity of the routine scenario of yet-another curatorial output. Better stick to vitae and avoid adding lines to a curriculum mori.
