What Is an Art Curator?

Julius Wiedemann tells us what an art curator is and what their job consists of within an art exhibition

As visitors and art lovers, we are used to stepping into a museum or gallery and looking at carefully selected and displayed artwork. We know there must be a process behind the selection of each piece dictated by all sorts of criteria. The person in charge of completing this selection is the art curator, perhaps not the most visible or recognizable person in a gallery, but possibly one of its most important figures.
To learn more about the job of the curator we sat with Julius Wiedemann, senior editor of publishing company TASCHEN, with almost twenty years of experience in art, design, and pop culture publishing.

What is a curator?
In a nutshell, a curator is a person who selects a few things and, in one way or another, gives meaning to this collection.
You can accomplish this with art pieces, wines, flowers, and much more, in the same way in which a florist chooses flowers to create a pretty bouquet for a special occasion, or a sommelier selects wines to pair with different dishes.

What a curator does is create a connection among the art pieces which in turn creates something even more valuable than the combination of each piece. The connection of the art pieces within a context creates a storyline, which is what people are going to remember about the ensemble.
Finally, in my view, curating art is an art in itself.

What does an art curator do exactly?

An art curator tells a story in which the protagonist is either an artist, an art movement, a type of artwork, or a historical context. When you put together an exhibition about the works of Picasso, for example, it could be an exhibition of animals painted by the artist, one of early Picasso's Modernism or perhaps the later Picasso during Spain’s dictatorship.
There are many ways to look at curating. However, there are five basic systems for organizing information and this is a useful tool for a curator.
The five systems are: location, alphabetical order, timeline, category, and hierarchy.

What do I have to study to become an art curator?

The majority of art curators study Art History, Philosophy, Literature, Fine Arts or other related subjects.

What makes a good curator?

A good curator not only tells a good story but has the ability to surprise the spectator. He or she can build up a story in which something we know little about connects with something we do not know yet, removing the learning process. A good curator creates sources of knowledge that inspire and to which we aspire.

Julius Wiedemann teaches the Domestika course 'Editing for Art and Design Books', where he instructs on the creative processes to create quality editorial products and effective decision-making skills that guarantee their success.

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