Curatorial Activities Research Articles

The curatorial turn in tourism and hospitality

PurposeThis study, a conceptual paper, analyses the growth of curation in tourism and hospitality and the curator role in selecting and framing products and experiences. It considers the growth of expert, algorithmic, social and co-creative curation modes and their effects.Design/methodology/approachNarrative and integrative reviews of literature on curation and tourism and hospitality are used to develop a typology of curation and identify different curation modes.FindingsCurational techniques are increasingly used to organise experience supply and distribution in mainstream fields, including media, retailing and fashion. In tourism and hospitality, curated tourism, curated hospitality brands and food offerings and place curation by destination marketing organisations are growing. Curation is undertaken by experts, algorithms and social groups and involves many of destination-related actors, producing a trend towards “hybrid curation” of places.Research limitations/implicationsResearch is needed on different forms of curation, their differential effects and the power roles of different curational modes.Practical implicationsCuration is a widespread intermediary function in tourism and hospitality, supporting better consumer choice. New curators influence experience supply and the distribution of consumer attention, shaping markets and co-creative activities. Increased curatorial activity should stimulate aesthetic and stylistic innovation and provide the basis for storytelling and narrative in tourism and hospitality.Originality/valueThis is the first study of curational strategies in tourism and hospitality, providing a definition and typology of curation, and linking micro and macro levels of analysis. It suggests the growth of choice-based logic alongside service-dominant logic in tourism and hospitality.

I. A. Puni as an Art Critic (Based on the Texts from 1914–1919)

This study examines the artistic and critical activity of I. A. Puni, a Russian avant-garde master and organiser of futurist exhibitions in the framework of his first creative period, preceding emigration. The opportunity to look from a historical distance at the time of the emergence of Russian avant-garde from the inside makes the study relevant. The researchers focus on valuable information about the time, the worldview of a curator/artist/critic (I. A. Puni being all of them) and the “pain” points of art. The conclusions are based on the multidimensional textual material (critical articles, letters, lecture materials), which helps immerse in the context of artistic life in Petrograd and Vitebsk at the beginning of the century. Using structural and semiotic analysis, the authors draw parallels with I. A. Puni’s painting and curatorial experience. Puni’s focus is on the theoretical aspects of the new art that concerned him as an artist. His texts raise polemical questions about the importance of “material culture”, the role of the artist, futurism, and curatorship. In an era dominated by production art and the principles of utilitarianism, Puni emphasises the value of the artist’s individuality, their understanding of aesthetic tasks, and the intellectual content of the visual narrative. For Puni, the beauty of art lies in its uselessness for life: it is utilitarian production that influences art, not the other way around. Through coloured materiality, peculiarities of composition and form, the artist emphasises the essence and the inner construction of the depicted object. The study notes the special stylistics of Puni’s texts, based on the neutrality of tone, reasoned judgments, which was not typical of theorists in the era of “poster language”. The artist’s curatorial activity, manifested by the landmark exhibitions “Tram B” and “0.10”, gives an example of a “critic in action”. The materials analysed show the complexity of the choice of objects capable of driving the narrative and the importance of one’s own position in the aspect of the rivalry between K. S. Malevich and V. E. Tatlin.

Blood Cell Formation

Blood Cell Formation Ruthie Jenrbekova (bio) Translated by Elaine Wilson (bio) On the International Day of NauryzLook for me not among the rosesNor among the sparks of fountain mistBut among specters, briar and rushes Play me some blues or maybe a polonaisePlay the shankobyz, use your mouth and tongueWe loved to fall up but now I'm afraid:In order to love one must fall down There will be a relapse as in the pastMidnight effusions—enuresisBlood formation burns like psoriasisChills, scoliosis, hematopoiesis And we will meet—Kazakh zhanie orysTo put one another through sorrow and blissA Tatar would have said "Nawryz"But a therapist: "neurosis" [End Page 57] Ruthie Jenrbekova Ruthie Jenrbekova was born in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and graduated from the Kazakh State University as an ecologist. Since 1997, she has been involved in various literary, artistic, and curatorial activities and also works as a cultural organizer. Together with Maria Vilkovisky, she is the cofounder of the imaginary art institution krëlex zentre. Her fields of interest include performance philosophy, material semiotics, and art-based methodologies. Currently a PhD candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, she lives and works in Almaty and Vienna. Elaine Wilson Elaine Wilson is a writer, literary translator, language instructor, and PhD candidate in the Department of Slavic Languages at Columbia University. She lives in New York City. Copyright © 2023 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Against Sexual Violence in the Museum: Art, Curating, and Activism

Depictions of sexual violence are frequently found in the collections and displays of art museums, and material that represents and affirms violence against women often is displayed unchallenged. This article poses questions about how the presence of this material has been addressed in the relations between feminist activism against sexual violence, art made by artists responding to and participating in feminist activism, and the curatorial activities that have arisen to address the challenges that these activities present to art museums. The chapter investigates the 2021 exhibition <i>Titian: Women, Myth and Power</i> at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and its handling of themes of rape in the central exhibit, Titian’s <i>Rape of Europa</i>; the history of themes of rape in feminist art since the 1970s and in exhibitions of this art that have taken place in museums in the last two decades; and curatorial engagements with sexual violence and rape in recent art exhibitions in the US and in the UK. The article argues that new strategies for the presentation and interpretation of artworks dealing with sexual violence are needed for museums to redress the patriarchal and colonial presence of sexual violence in their collection.

Research on the Artistic Construction of Luxury Brands from the Perspective of Brand Culture Communication

With the rejuvenation and diversification of the luxury market, luxury brands face the challenge of maintaining economic growth while considering the challenges of brand image building and customer loyalty. There is growing evidence that the younger generation of customers will gradually become the protagonists of the luxury market. One of the customer journeys they care most about is matching personal and brand values and the consumption experience. From this perspective, this article uses case studies, comparative studies, and literature research, taking Cartier Beyond Boundaries - Cartier Palace Museum Crafts and Restoration Special Exhibition as the main case. By comparing with other luxury brands’ art exhibitions in Asia, Analyze and study why contemporary luxury brands have increased their artistic construction and the relationship between luxury brand curatorial activities in the Asian market. By implementing the recommendations in this paper, Cartier can create a digital environment within the experience of its artistic curatorial events, facilitating interaction with their products, stories, and artworks.

Educational Potential of Curatorship in a Pedagogical University

The purpose of the article is to analyze the educational potential of curatorship in a pedagogical university, and to determine the educational resources of the main activities of student groups’ curators. As a result of the theoretical analysis of curatorship as a subject of the educational space of a pedagogical university, various educational possibilities of the curatorʼs position are determined; the pool of roles and qualities in which the curator acts are analyzed. The article also presents the results of a broad study at Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University of the qualitative characteristics of curatorship in general, including its educational potential. The students and curators of academic groups’ relationship, the differences in the positions of an instructor curator and an undergraduate curator, the curator’s educating influence on various aspects of student life were investigated. In addition, the article presents an analysis of the regulations on curatorial activities in various universities in Russia, and the most common curator’s responsibilities are identified.

The Art and Craftivism of Exhibiting Species and Habitat Loss in Natural History Museums

In recent years the presentation of anthropogenic extinction narratives in natural history museums has occurred through temporary exhibitions, curatorial and artistic interventions in permanent collections displays and public engagement events. Such work has enabled institutions to re-orientate historical collections and permanent galleries towards this pressing contemporary issue. This article examines a subset of this wider field of curatorial activity by considering how contemporary handicrafts including knitting and crochet have been displayed to engage visitors with species and habitat loss in natural history museums, situating this work within craftivist practices and the longer history of craft being mobilized for political and ethical ends. While the habitat diorama alerted audiences to disappearing species and threatened ecosystems in the twentieth century through a combination of art, science and craft, I reveal how recent exhibitions and events have reconfigured a similar interdisciplinary mix to raise awareness of species and habitat loss in the twenty-first century.

#AlmaToo: The Art of Being Believed

Abstract Despite the key role played by Alma Schindler Mahler-Werfel (1879–1964) in the preservation of her husband Gustav’s compositions and biography, she has often been viewed as having deliberately distorted his legacy. As sometimes happens to the widows of accomplished men, Alma’s capacity for sound judgment and right to control her image have been challenged by her husband’s devotees. This article considers Alma’s situation in terms of the #MeToo movement’s demand for the reevaluation of sexual politics between powerful men and younger women. Fundamental to this reconsideration is the imperative to listen to what individuals say about their experiences. Alma was nearly twenty years Gustav’s junior and pregnant when their marriage was hastily arranged. I explore key elements in their relationship, such as the devastating letter in which Gustav forbade her to compose, in terms of new conceptualizations of gaslighting, grooming, consent, character assessment, and believability articulated by the #MeToo movement. This theoretical foundation grounds extensive critique of both the conventions of fin-de-siècle Vienna and the chauvinism of late twentieth-century scholars. I conclude by briefly proposing an alternative perspective on Alma’s musical contributions based on her writings, compositions, and editorial, organizational, and curatorial activities. The revision of assumptions about one of Europe’s most famous musical couples has gained urgency since #MeToo began to articulate a new perspective on gender relations and artistic aspirations founded on social justice.

Sepulcherised Objects and Their Decolonial Futures in African Museums: The “Robert Edward Codrington Collection” at the Zimbabwe Natural History Museum

This essay builds on the emerging (museum) decolonizing perspectives to (i) explore the biographical details and modes of curation and classification to which “ethnographic”1 objects collected during the colonial era have been exposed; to (ii) foreground the complexities of inherited colonial museum processes embedded in African urban contexts; and, to (iii) consider alternative modes of engagement with ethnographic objects and local Indigenous communities to challenge the embedded regimes of care and the marginalization rendered to Indigenous epistemologies. One of the biggest questions facing museums in the world today is how to deal with the hordes of objects collected from various Indigenous communities and placed in museums far away from the communities who made and used them. Using the case of an “ethnographic” collection in a former colonial museum, we call for a paradigm shift in museum practices, and challenge the present state of affairs of museum curatorship. We then briefly suggest possible ways in which such museums can confront their imperial histories and unsettle their inherited regimes of care and representation. We call for museums to enter into conversations with communities, listening to them and effecting curatorial activities that re-center local ways of knowing, while embracing the complexities associated with such engagements.

Cultural Heritage Governance, Policies and Management in Serbia

The article deals with the system of cultural heritage governance and management in Serbia as a successor state of Yugoslavia which faced a number of serious risks. These included not only an economic downturn and public neglect, but also war and systematic destruction based on political and ethnocentric agendas. Since the beginning of the 2010s, the heritage community in Serbia has been provided systematic public support in the form of finance, legislation and priority. The paper tests the effect of these institutional changes in practice by using indicators such as museum visits, scholarly and curatorial activities. It concludes that the rise in the number of visitors in Serbian museums is hampered by low cultural participation of the population and by the lack of sufficient curatorial activity.

Curatorial Processes in the Network Environment: Practice and Contexts from the 1980s

The online environment has become an unprecedented space for the creation and diffusion of art and culture with the COVID-19 pandemic. The spread of the virus was a kind of catalyst that helped artists reach far beyond the specialized settings, proposing a series of creative and curatorial possibilities on the agenda since the emergence of the Internet. Within this context, this article aims at discussing similarities and differences in curatorial practices carried out for physical spaces and for digital environments, considering their conceptual, expographic, technological and accessibility-centered aspects for audiences. In the first part of the article, we will present a brief history of curatorial activity, with an emphasis on productions made in networks and on the network from the 1980s.

Supporting the activities of curators who do not have a basic pedagogical education at S. Seifullin Agro Technical University

At present, the priority goal of the higher education system is the formation of a personality not only professionally competent, but also tolerant, capable of creativity, able to predict his role in a dynamic world, responsible and passionate. Actually, all these characteristics are set by the labor market for the training of qualified and competitive personnel. However, as scientific research and teaching practice show, not all students can independently achieve the necessary results due to their lack of adaptation to higher education. Therefore, we need specialists who can help them in this and show them the right direction. In this regard, there is a growing interest in the study of curatorial activity, its role and place in the higher education system. The article, within the framework of the "School of Curators" created at S. Seifulin Agro Technical University, analyzes the results of diagnostics in order to identify the pedagogical competence of curators, focuses on a number of reasons that impede their activities, as well as a number of tested areas of activity that contribute to their elimination, offers a number of measures aimed to improve the pedagogical culture of curators of student groups who do not have a basic pedagogical education.

Review: John McAndrew's Modernist Vision: From the Vassar College Art Library to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, by Mardges Bacon, and Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art: The Arthur Drexler Years, 1951–1986, by Thomas S. Hines

Review: <i>John McAndrew's Modernist Vision: From the Vassar College Art Library to the Museum of Modern Art in New York</i>, by Mardges Bacon, and <i>Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art: The Arthur Drexler Years</i>, 1951–1986, by Thomas S. Hines

Library cultures of data curation: Adventures in astronomy

AbstractUniversity libraries are partnering with disciplinary data producers to provide long‐term digital curation of research data sets. Managing data set producer expectations and guiding future development of library services requires understanding the decisions libraries make about curatorial activities, why they make these decisions, and the effects on future data reuse. We present a study, comprising interviews (n = 43) and ethnographic observation, of two university libraries who partnered with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) collaboration to curate a significant astronomy data set. The two libraries made different choices of the materials to curate and associated services, which resulted in different reuse possibilities. Each of the libraries offered partial solutions to the SDSS leaders' objectives. The libraries' approaches to curation diverged due to contextual factors, notably the extant infrastructure at their disposal (including technical infrastructure, staff expertise, values and internal culture, and organizational structure). The Data Transfer Process case offers lessons in understanding how libraries choose curation paths and how these choices influence possibilities for data reuse. Outcomes may not match data producers' initial expectations but may create opportunities for reusing data in unexpected and beneficial ways.

A mão que guia a máquina

Esse artigo explora as possibilidades de análise de fontes primárias no contexto de uma dissertação de mestrado em desenvolvimento. A pesquisa de mestrado intitulada Diálogos modernos: Lina Bo Bardi e a Caravana Farkas tem como propósito identificar diálogos intelectuais entre os escritos produzidos pela arquiteta Lina Bo Bardi e dois conjuntos de filmes hoje conhecidos como Caravana Farkas. Os filmes mencionados se relacionam cronológica e tematicamente com o convívio entre os cineastas e Lina Bo Bardi e com a produção escrita e expográfica da arquiteta referente à valorização dos meios de produção artesanais originados de tradições populares do nordeste brasileiro. A documentação investigada corresponde a nove números de uma página dominical do jornal Diário de Notícias de Salvador, editados por Bardi e publicados ao longo de dois meses no ano de 1958, e um curta-metragem brasileiro produzido por Thomaz Farkas e dirigido por Paulo Gil Soares em 1969. Serão explorados alguns aspectos de análise das fontes, como a compreensão da identidade dos colaboradores da página, questões relativas à proposta de design gráfico de Lina Bo Bardi e parte do conteúdo dos textos: o conjunto circunscrito de passagens diretamente dirigidas a um grupo de estudantes do qual Paulo Gil Soares fazia parte e alguns trechos que incidem no tema do curta-metragem analisado.

КУРАТОРСКОЕ ОБРАЗОВАНИЕ КАК СОЦИОКУЛЬТУРНАЯ ПРАКТИКА: ДВЕ КОНЦЕПТУАЛЬНЫЕ РАМКИ

The article raises the question of redefining curating in the field of artistic processes and defining it as a sociocultural practice. As a starting point for curatorial activity, we understand curatorial education, which currently exists in Russia in two forms: within the frameworks of schools of contemporary art and in the mode of academic programs. The focus of the research is the schools of contemporary art as new educational institutions that form both curators and artists capable of carrying out, in addition to artistic, curatorial activities. The article examines two conceptual frameworks that make it possible to problematize the basic points associated with the model of curatorial education in the form of schools of contemporary art. The first framework is associated with the theory of critical pedagogy and its development in the works of Henry Giroux, primarily in relation to the issue of the relationship between cultural and educational practices. The second framework is designated by Boris Groys’s concept of the new. It allows problematizing the position of schools of contemporary art in relation to previous educational strategies in the artistic space. In the context of two conceptual frameworks, curatorial education is seen as a form of cultural production.

Information School academics and the value of their personal digital archives

Introduction.This paper explores the value that academics in an information school assign to their digital files and how this relates to their personal information management and personal digital archiving practices. Method. An interpretivist qualitative approach was adopted with data from in-depth interviews and participant-led tours of their digital storage space. Analysis. The approach taken was thematic analysis. Results. Participants placed little value on their digital material beyond the value of its immediate use. They did not attach worth to their digital files for reuse by others, for sentiment, to project their identity or for the study of the development of the discipline or the study of the creative process. This was reflected in storage and file-naming practices, and the lack of curatorial activity. Conclusions. This paper is one of the first to investigate academics' personal information management and personal digital archiving practices, especially to focus on the value of digital possessions. The paper begins to uncover the importance of wider contextual factors in shaping such practices. Institutions need to do more to encourage academics to recognise the diverse types of value in the digital material they create.

На границе модернизма: зарубежные художественные выставки в России 1890-х годов

The article reconstructs the history of organizing and holding of foreign art exhibitions that took place in Russia in the 1890s. During this period, St. Petersburg and Moscow were the leading locations of the Russian Empire, in which acquaintance, comprehension, and development of Western art practices took place.The article sequentially analyzes the large-scale exhibitions, which allowed the Russian audience, without going abroad, to get a fairly wide idea of the art of France, Holland, England, Belgium, and the countries of Scandinavia in a short period of time. A significant role in this process was played by the curatorial activity of Sergei Diaghilev, whose main goal, according to the author, was to form a new exhibition model in Russia — secession, i.e. a multinational exhibition that gives a pluralistic picture of the quest for contemporary art and focuses on masters with an international reputation. The article analyzes in detail the reasons why the new role of the curator postulated by Diaghilev, as well as the exposition and exhibition format proposed by him, were not fixed on Russian soil.

A Pan-African Space in Cape Town? The Chimurenga Archive of Pan-African Festivals

ABSTRACT Created in 2002 in Cape Town by Ntone Edjabe, Chimurenga is a multidimensional project that combines a print magazine, a workspace, a platform for editorial and curatorial activities, an online library, and a radio station (the Pan-African Space Station). Based on collaborative ethnographic research with the Chimurenga team, this paper discusses the collection, production and creation of an archive about Pan-African festivals that this collective has developed through their cultural activities. After a brief overview of Festival of Black Arts and Culture (FESTAC) which took place in Lagos in 1977, and the history of Pan-African festivals, I describe the materials collected by Chimurenga and the projects in which they have participated. By following the travelling routes which have led to this informal and unstable collection of materials, I highlight how Chimurenga’s work contributes to challenging the idea of the archive, transformed through their practice into a dynamic and generative medium. I consider how the archive and memory of FESTAC is spread by Chimurenga in global and local spheres, and how it is used to produce new cultural and art forms in the present day, scrambling boundaries between past, present and future to perform a Pan-African transtemporal space in South Africa.

Experimental and Creative Approaches to Collecting and Distributing New Media Art within Regional Arts Organisations

This article is an overview of preliminary research undertaken for the creation of a framework for collecting and distributing new media art within regional art galleries in the U.K. From the 1960s, artists have experimented using computers and software as production tools to create artworks ranging from static, algorithmic drawings on paper to installations with complex, interactive and process-oriented behaviours. The art-form has evolved into multiple strands of production, presentation and distribution. But are we, as collectors, researchers, artists and enthusiasts facing an uncertain future concerning the integration of new media art into institutional cultural organisations? Recently, concerns have been raised by curators regarding the importance of learning how to collect new media art if there is to be any hope of preserving the artworks as well as their histories. Traditional collections management approaches must evolve to take into account the variable characteristics of new media artworks. As I will discuss in this article, although regarded as a barrier to collecting new media artworks, artists and curators at individual institutions have recently taken steps to tackle curatorial and collections management activities concerning the often unpredictable and unstable behaviours of new media artworks by collaboration and experimentation. This method has proved successful with some mainstream, university and municipal galleries prior to acquiring or commissioning new artworks into their collections. This paper purports that by collaboration, experimentation and the sharing of knowledge and resources, these concerns may be conquered to preserve and make new media art accessible for future generations to enjoy and not to lament over its disappearance.