Siderfin, Naomi Jane; (2023) Invisible Stitches: revealing the seam between making and curating contemporary art. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Invisible Stitches: revealing the seam between making and curating contemporary art is an experiential, practical journey that starts with the shifting identities of artist and curator and is provoked by a paradoxical tendency: the apparent aspiration of curators to metamorphosise to artists. As a counterbalance, my research illuminates the reverse tendency: the scarcely acknowledged position of artists who (like me) integrate curation within their practice. This is a seam of activity that remains largely invisible in existing curatorial literature. What types of knowledge do artists bring to curating? I filter my question through the practical process of making and presenting artworks and exhibitions, generating answers from the messy process of thinking through doing. I hypothesise that as ‘installation’ has become ubiquitous as a mode of art making, so has exhibition making become conflated, blurring the traditional roles of artist and curator – with ambiguous power dynamics as an outcome. I pursue the problematic and test my hypothesis through two lines of inquiry: (i) the self-reflexive observation of a series of personal artworks where am I variously curated by others, self-curate my own work in a group exhibition, or exhibit in an un-curated situation; (ii) interviews with other artists who (like me) have controlled a specific exhibition space over a significant time frame. My hunch, that the application of tacit knowledge specific to artists plays a pivotal role in their curatorial practice, is particularly supported by the thinking of Rosalind E. Krauss and Peter Osborne and borne out in my interviews. The project reveals some of the stitches that indivisibly bind two modes of operation – artist and curator – into one reflective practice and observes the interdependence of exhibition and installation in a post-medium context: its implications for artist, curator and spectator and the politics of these inflections.

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