Artists
MICHAEL DAGOSTINO
SARAH JONES
HANNA MATTHEWS
ELLIE RAY
Modes of Curating Symposium
Date: 10-Sep-2011
Location: Contemporary Art Tasmania
Do hosting institutions effect the curatorial decision making process? How do curators develop projects? What goes on behind the scenes? What then is the role of the curator? Modes of Curating is a half day symposium designed to focus attention on the complex and divergent issues that surround curating. Invited speakers Michael Dagostino, Sarah Jones, Hannah Mathews and Ellie Ray will introduce their recent curatorial projects, provide insights into their varied approaches to exhibition making and take part in a public discussion about the practice of curating.
Recently appointed Campelltown Arts Centre Director, Michael Dagostino will talk about his project, When Good Curators Go Bad, presented at MOP Projects, Sydney (2011). “If you stop creating do you stop being an artist? Are years of study wasted if you don’t go on to have an arts practice? Can you be an artist and curator at the same time?” When Good Curators Go Bad opens up a dialogue from the past to question what is an artist and how it is defined in today’s society.
A recent exhibition invitation, written for Independent Tasmanian Curator, Sarah Jones by the exhibiting venue, opened with: “Curator Sarah Jones brings some misplaced ambition…” Jones will use this as the starting point in discussing her two most recent curatorial projects, Erotographomania, curated for CAST (2011) and trophywife, curated for DEATH BE KIND, Melbourne (2011). Jones will focus on the overlapping concerns within both exhibitions – desire, drive, obsession and death.
Over the past decade Hannah Mathews has worked with various organisations, investigating a range of curatorial models and seeking to develop and extend her experience and understanding of art, artists and exhibitions. Mathews will talk about two exhibitions she has worked on that illustrate various approaches to curating and space – Linden 1968, Linden Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2008) and Power to the People: Contemporary Conceptualism and the Object in Art, ACCA, Melbourne (2011). Mathews is a curator at ACCA.
Devonport Regional Gallery Director, Ellie Ray will talk about Close-Distance, curated for the Devonport Regional Gallery (2009). Ray will discuss the exhibition premise and navigate through the logistics of exhibition development and presentation within a regional context.