Institution

The reading by Michael Brenson made me think about the role of the modern-day curator and how much it has changed over the years. I always thought of a curator having an easy job that involved the handling of beautiful artworks and making them look good in a museum setting. But this is only a small portion of what their job entails. One main point that I would like to discuss is the role of language in the curator's daily job.

One thing that I realized is that the job of a curator has morphed into a much larger job than it has been in the past. Brenson states that the "transformation of the curator of contemporary art from behind-the-scences aesthetic arbiter to central player in the broader stage of cultural politics" (Kocur, 56). Also, another point that Brenson mentions was that "the presentation of art is more dependent on the curator than ever. There seems to be a concensus that when art from another culture is shown in another, it cannot speak for itself" (Kocur, 57). How does the curator effectively express the importance of a foreign work of art to a domestic public? It is extremely difficult to do. I was told today that no one really needs to go to college, but the only reason that we go is so that we gain knowledge of th LANGUAGE that we need in order to flourish in our work enviroment. We need to talk the talk and walk the walk. Language is very important for a curator. They need to know the right words to use so as to not offend or discriminate against anyone. The difficulty with language is that the words that we use to describe and talk about art does not contain any inherent value and the words are unstable. Ferdinand de Saussure "argued that the meaning of language comes from an underlying 'structure' or system and, in turn, that each structure is specific to a certain culture" (Curzon). The curator must be in charge of knowing the structure of language that is specific to the culture of the artworks that they display. The word "art" means something different in different cultures, and it is the job of the curator to explain art to the public in a way that helps them understand the origins of it and why it should be called a work of art. The modern-day curator's job has morphed into one that consists of bridging the gap between cultures through the use of language and this is what makes them a central figure in institutions.

Bibliography:
Kocur, Zoya, and Simon Leung. Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. p 56-57.

Curzon, Lucy. Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, and Deconstruction. Tegrity Recording. 2010