María de Corral |
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International exhibition
Curator: María de Corral
About the title of her exhibition which reaches back into the 1970s,
María de Corral wrote that she chose The Experience of Art because
she "wanted to share with the visitors some of the issues that
artists address in their works every day". Her statement
is followed by a listing of the topics she had in mind. Her exhibition
should not be understood as being thematically structured, or as a "concept
exhibition," but rather as "the labyrinthine itinerary of
art" shown as a process that "speaks of intensity," "of
the existing relationship between artists of different generations,
who work on specific ideas about art and the life of our times,"
and more... In the 34 spaces of the Italian pavilion, the curator wanted
to assemble associative constellations of work groups meant to increase
the intensity of the individual artworks.
Regarding her criteria for selecting the participants, María de Corral
wrote, "I do not seek an exhibition that, in terms of the numbers of participants
from all countries and continents, offers a false model of universality. I
have decided to work with certain authors, who have accompanied me along my
lengthy artistic itinerary" ([sic] Shouldn’t it be the other way – that
a curator accompanies the artists on their route?).
We found hard to overlook what Corral added at the press conference
in Berlin (see our introduction). In
her opinion, the major exhibitions of recent years, such as Documenta11,
prove that the important artists from the "periphery" produce
their work in the cultural centers. Even when they speak of the context
they originate from, they do so from a western perspective.
This idea addresses a problem with one's own perspective, which
the curator clearly shares with a few influential colleagues. For sure
there exist various reasons (lack of time, limited budgets, the violence
in certain countries, etc.) – to put it mildly – for not
researching on location with the necessary thoroughness, or at least
having competent colleagues involved. But to draw from this the conclusion
that the most important art of the "periphery" regions (in
itself an obsolete discourse nowadays) emerges in one’s own surroundings
(that is, in western metropolises) is rather absurd. A lack of curiosity
in many of today’s curators also shows itself in the spreading
bad habit of "sampling curating," a tendency to prefer selecting
the kind of artists encountered at major exhibitions over the last years,
and whose value has long been negotiated by the art system.
Gerhard Haupt and Pat Binder
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