En-acting voices: Rhetorical platforms, public speaking and curatorial discourse
Lead Research Organisation:
Royal College of Art
Department Name: School of Art and Humanities
Abstract
The present proposal aims to interrogate the role "rhetorical production" (O'Neill, 2015) has
played in contemporary art curating over the past decade, as reflected in curatorial
scholarship and conveyed in curatorial practice. It refers not only to the rich array of
discursive formats underpinning the rise of curatorial discourse --from talks and interviews to
first-person narratives and biographical accounts-- but, also, to theoretical inquiries into the
programmatic agenda of curating, which have increasingly considered this practice as a
particular mode of speaking (Sheikh, 2007; Rogoff, 2013; Butler and Lehrer, 2016) and the
curator as the main figure enabling a common space for speech in the sphere of
contemporary art. Despite the prominence of curatorial discursive platforms during the last
ten years, these have remained under-analysed and, with it, its impact on the process of
biennalisation undergone by contemporary art, not least on the crucial themes debated
therein, for instance, globalization, ecological crisis, decolonization, etc. Examining the
curatorial sites generating rhetorical production becomes therefore a need if we want to
understand the nexus between contemporary art, curating and global politics.
Drawing on examples of curatorial practice where public speech is purportedly reconciling
the singularity of the curator with community instantiation, I aim to reassess the
pervasiveness of the curatorial voice to understand the role curatorial discourse has played
in contemporary art during the last decade. My analysis intends to unpack how projects such
as documenta 14's "methexic" radio, the Serpentine Marathons, or the exhibition "Acts of
Voicing" have privileged speaking as a means to accomplish their curatorial purpose while
bracing the discursive dimension of curating.
The emergence of this rhetorical paradigm has corresponded to a series of notions which
curating has incorporated into its field of inquiry; such as, responsibility and "responsiveness"
(Butler and Athanasiou, 2013), performativity (Lind (ed.), 2012; Lind, 2007, 2010), durational
processes (O'Neill and Doherty, 2011) as well as pedagogy (Graham et al., 2016). These
reflections have also nurtured major curatorial approaches to the political, semiotic and
libidinal economies that instantiate a community, the latter often labelled in curatorial
discourse as constituency (Byrne (ed.), 2018). In and by enacting such constituencies,
curatorial practice has privileged public speaking as the main vehicle conveying those
moments of community. In initiatives such as KORO, Bergen Assembly or the Folkestone
Triennial public address has operated both as the paradigm for disciplinary reflection on
curating, being the curator who speaks, and as the main structure that constitutes the
"community" (Christ et al., 2015). This ambivalence, which summarizes well the ultimate
agenda biennales and analog initiatives are set out to accomplish, gives away the political
stances implied in a notion of community that requires, to become such, a mediating
instantiation -the curator's. Still more interesting is the nature itself of this kind of public
speaking, both a prerequisite for and a result of assembling constituencies in the name of
contemporary art, which is able to endow the same with genuine political status -usually
making implicit that conventional forms of community lack political authenticity.
played in contemporary art curating over the past decade, as reflected in curatorial
scholarship and conveyed in curatorial practice. It refers not only to the rich array of
discursive formats underpinning the rise of curatorial discourse --from talks and interviews to
first-person narratives and biographical accounts-- but, also, to theoretical inquiries into the
programmatic agenda of curating, which have increasingly considered this practice as a
particular mode of speaking (Sheikh, 2007; Rogoff, 2013; Butler and Lehrer, 2016) and the
curator as the main figure enabling a common space for speech in the sphere of
contemporary art. Despite the prominence of curatorial discursive platforms during the last
ten years, these have remained under-analysed and, with it, its impact on the process of
biennalisation undergone by contemporary art, not least on the crucial themes debated
therein, for instance, globalization, ecological crisis, decolonization, etc. Examining the
curatorial sites generating rhetorical production becomes therefore a need if we want to
understand the nexus between contemporary art, curating and global politics.
Drawing on examples of curatorial practice where public speech is purportedly reconciling
the singularity of the curator with community instantiation, I aim to reassess the
pervasiveness of the curatorial voice to understand the role curatorial discourse has played
in contemporary art during the last decade. My analysis intends to unpack how projects such
as documenta 14's "methexic" radio, the Serpentine Marathons, or the exhibition "Acts of
Voicing" have privileged speaking as a means to accomplish their curatorial purpose while
bracing the discursive dimension of curating.
The emergence of this rhetorical paradigm has corresponded to a series of notions which
curating has incorporated into its field of inquiry; such as, responsibility and "responsiveness"
(Butler and Athanasiou, 2013), performativity (Lind (ed.), 2012; Lind, 2007, 2010), durational
processes (O'Neill and Doherty, 2011) as well as pedagogy (Graham et al., 2016). These
reflections have also nurtured major curatorial approaches to the political, semiotic and
libidinal economies that instantiate a community, the latter often labelled in curatorial
discourse as constituency (Byrne (ed.), 2018). In and by enacting such constituencies,
curatorial practice has privileged public speaking as the main vehicle conveying those
moments of community. In initiatives such as KORO, Bergen Assembly or the Folkestone
Triennial public address has operated both as the paradigm for disciplinary reflection on
curating, being the curator who speaks, and as the main structure that constitutes the
"community" (Christ et al., 2015). This ambivalence, which summarizes well the ultimate
agenda biennales and analog initiatives are set out to accomplish, gives away the political
stances implied in a notion of community that requires, to become such, a mediating
instantiation -the curator's. Still more interesting is the nature itself of this kind of public
speaking, both a prerequisite for and a result of assembling constituencies in the name of
contemporary art, which is able to endow the same with genuine political status -usually
making implicit that conventional forms of community lack political authenticity.