Curatorview [Alfredo Cramerotti]

Curatorial study day led by Alfredo Cramerotti at GSA – The Glasgow School of Art

31 January 2018

I conceive and understand “research” as a form of curating – namely, organizing connections and defining touchstones in contemporary visual culture by means of my work as a writer, speaker and visual project organizer – developing a discourse, or a statement through works of art, which of course can also overwhelm or enhance the project’s rationale.

In the course of this research, I have found myself working in a combination of modes, according to the various tasks I set myself. Sometimes taking a more authorial role and developing concepts and frameworks, some others becoming a conduit for ideas not mine, but translated and transformed by the visual authors I was working with. Thus, as a curator, I have acted as meta-artist; the work undertaken is less about the “what” and more about the “how”.

PART ONE

The Curator as Meta-Artist.

Presentation of three curatorial drafts recently delivered by Cramerotti: Michael Takeo Magruder’s De-Coding the Apocalypse at the King’s College Cultural Institute London (2015), Marinella Senatore’s The School of Narrative Dance at MOSTYN (2016), and Shezad Dawood’s Leviathan at Palazzina Canonica / Fortuny Factory Venice (2017). An insight into the research involved in developing the various themes and approaches for these exhibitions, the conversation with the artists, the solutions in relation to the spaces, and the mediation tools adopted in each case.

PART TWO

The Social, Humanitarian, Historical, Scientific, Logistics as Art.

Participants are invited to discuss and present to the group their views / answers to questions such as: What does beauty has to do with, for instance, migration, climate change, mental or physical conditions? What is our understanding of aesthetics in relation to ethics? How do we tackle themes that lend themselves awkwardly to a presentation in the (critical) visual realm? Could the initiative be produced somehow else? Is new media and digital platforms following the concept and the execution or preceding it? Is the selection of artists or speakers leading to unexplored territories or consolidating an approach?