The ArtLab Gallery in the Visual Arts Building has been transformed into eight mini-galleries with each acting as a personal vehicle in considering the challenges typically encountered by contemporary curators.
Mounting individual galleries, as opposed to organizing one large group exhibition, the eight students in the Gallery Practices class in the Department of Visual Arts have provided critical responses with individual points of view in the exhibition entitled Curating the Curatorial.
“In this way, the ArtLab acts as a mechanism for brining together the concerns of the students in a more complex way, that involves dialogue and an open exchange of ideas,” says ArtLab Gallery director Susan Edelstein, who also teaches the class.
The list of roles examined by the students includes the director, curator, registrar, preparatory, fundraising committee, educational outreach and, of course, the artist, or, in some cases, the collector.
Included in this equation is the important consideration of the different positions typically required to pull together an exhibition in a museum or gallery.
“Through these important reflections the students have come together to discuss and disrupt the surface of curating, a position that continues to be more complex as the world of art and collecting continues to challenge the world we live in,” says Edelstein.
The Gallery Practices class exhibition runs through March 18. The ArtLab Gallery is open Monday to Friday noon until 6 p.m., and until 8 p.m. on Thursdays.
