How Not To Curate

I have just read an article from the Art section of The Times, where the journalist revealed his opinion on the Modern British Sculpture exhibition at the Royal Academy. He had high expectations of the show, as Britain has produced many brilliant sculptors over time. He left disappointed and confused; however, this was due to the poor curation of the works rather than the works themselves. He said that some exhibits seemed completely irrelevant or pointless, such as replicas of things which seemed to have been recreated at enormous expense, despite having little or no link to British sculpture. This waste of money became particularly apparent to him with the complete omission of work by important British artists such as Anish Kapoor and Anthony Gormley.

Part of the exhibition details how the British Museum showed exhibits plundered from other cultures and how this changed the course of British sculpture. However, with ancient artefacts placed among modern sculpture, the exhibition becomes confused. The journalist states that if it was a show based on the influence of Primitive cultures on modern sculpture then the result may have been successful. However, this was not what this exhibition was meant to be about.

Overall, I think the mistakes the curators made here was to go off subject in an attempt to seem clever and new, when it just ended up seeming confused and unsure of its own theme, even including non-British artists.
I think the lesson for us here is to not stray too far outside of our theme, to make sure the title of our exhibition is relevant to pretty much all the works we include, and to make sure it all pulls together coherently.

Emily