| Nowadays, an exhibition of contemporary art typically requires a curator—this has very much become the established system—and the operation of this system has increasingly led to the monopoly of art resources. In other words, the power has been placed in the hands and minds of only a few. This current curatorial norm comes from the West, where the original idea was to insure the aesthetic quality of the exhibition and to lead the exhibited art into the realms of theory and ideology. |  |
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Nowadays, an exhibition of contemporary art typically requires a curator—this has very much become the established system—and the operation of this system has increasingly led to the monopoly of art resources. In other words, the power has been placed in the hands and minds of only a few. This current curatorial norm comes from the West, where the original idea was to insure the aesthetic quality of the exhibition and to lead the exhibited art into the realms of theory and ideology. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with the system itself, as human society needs discipline and organization, but humans are more functional than this system presumes, both in terms of the examples of social economy and social structure. In regarding contemporary art especially, its unique value and meaning is largely significant because of its gesture of independence from mainstream society and because of its critical relationship with established systems and authority.
Thus, the upcoming exhibition to be accommodated by the Tang Contemporary Art Space in Beijing employs a similar approach. The exhibit consciously rejects the conventional conception of this common curatorial system—the show will actually be curated by the participating artists themselves. In this way, it will be an exhibition based on autonomy. The artists here will attempt to break from the very concept of fitting into some thematic framework set up by a curator for his or her own exhibition by organizing an art show themselves. This endeavor will certainly endow the participating artists with more freedom in terms of their own artistic creativity.
Most of the artists involved are quite young, but some have already acquired an international reputation. Others, however, have just stepped onto the art scene. In the end, all of the artists in this show declare that they are not against curatorship, or the system itself, but that they simply want to explore an alternative means of creating their art, and that they want to do so more freely.
