I am a Curator

I am a Curator was a process-based exhibition project by artist Per Hüttner that took place at Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK, 5 November – 14 December 2003. During the period individual or groups of people with no experience of exhibition making created 36 exhibitions and briefly got to experience the process putting together a contemporary art show. They had artwork by 57 artists to interact with. The project stirred a lot of controversy in the art world at the time. The most common critique was that the project suggested that curation and exhibition making is easy Hüttner responded to this by writing: "the goal of the project was to inspire a more diverse and profound discussion about the meaning of artworks, exhibitions and the role of the artist." Over the years, the project has gained recognition and has been hailed as being ahead of its time and has been widely appreciated for its visionary qualities in readers on curation and research on the subject of art and exhibition making.

Hüttner carried out a series of exhibitions that democratized or investigated the curatorial process in the late 1990s and in the early years of the new millennium. Many of these were collaborative and took place at the Gallery Konstakuten in Stockholm, The Hood Gallery in Los Angeles but also in galleries and public spaces in London, New York City and Vancouver and involved artists from different generations and included Geoffrey Farmer, Brian Jungen, Lenke Rothman, Neil Goldstein and curators like Reid Shier and Tone O Nielsen. In 2001 he created the curatorial framework for an exhibition at Nylon in collaboration with Goshka Macuga and Gavin Wade. and in 2002 at Curatorial Market at Cuchifritos and various public venues including Essex Street Market in New York. In these projects he developed ideas and practices that pointed towards a new way of relating to the art object and exhibition making that eventually became manifest in I am a Curator.:

Hüttner has since developed these strategies both in projects like Repetitive Time, Democracy and Desire, (In)Visible Dialogues and in the international research network Vision Forum.

During six weeks people or groups of people with no prior experience in exhibition making undertook 36 investigative exercises into the process of putting together an exhibition. From the outset, the idea was to create an exhibition each day, but quickly the focus moved to investigate the 57 artworks as a resource. In order to realize this strategy the artist developed some basic concepts:

Curator of the Day: The daily slots were administered through an application process through which we tried to give as many different people as possible, in relation to occupation, age, sex, social and ethnic background. More often than not, the Curator of Day was a small group. Meaning that in the end roughly 70 people were curators.

The Gallery Crew: The Gallery Crew was the Curators of the Day's aid in developing their ideas and the project that they wanted to realize during the day. The Curator of the Day was not allowed to touch the artwork, except in those cases when this was an integral part of the piece. All the handling and mounting of the work was carried out by the Gallery Crew. The crew was also responsible for informing the visitors to the gallery about the project and answering questions.

Support Structure: Support Structure hosted all the artwork. It was mobile and it was also used to display work, as well as change the size and appearance of the space. It incorporated two tables and half a dozen chairs that could also be used as plinths to present work on. But Celine Condorelli and Gavin Wade took their brief further and allowed Support Structure be a questioning and critical tool and an important aspect of the process of the project. The structure took the centre stage, but in an unexpected way the Curators of the Day remained strangely blind to the eleven meter long monster object on wheels and few, if any, references were made to it in their reports. The two also offered objects and lists of what to do if the Curator of the Day gets stuck and included phone numbers to well-known contemporary curators.

The Selectors: To provide a dynamic collection for the Curator of the Day to choose from, six people were asked to select artwork for I Am a Curator. Each devised a different approach for his or her selection. They were Patrick Bernier, Melanie Keen, Lisa Le Feuvre, Tone O. Nielsen, Reid Shier and Per Hüttner.

The Interface Cards: A5-sized plastic cards were designed and realized by American artist Scott Rigby. For each artwork available for selection there was one corresponding Interface Card. The Interface Cards along with the website (which used the same design) were the main tools for the Curator of the Day to select artwork and devise their exhibition.

The Website: All the artwork available for selection could be browsed on Chisenhale Gallery's website. There was also continually updated photographic documentation of the exhibitions created by the Curators of the Day.

Each of the 36 exhibitions realized within the framework of I am a Curator took on very different forms and used the artwork and the space in very different ways. Artist Hannah Rickards who was leading the gallery crew describes an exhibition that had great impact on the development of the project:

Hüttner talks about a few of the key experiences among the 36 exhibitions:

Other shows included Sebastian Roach's Art for Wine Day 13/12/03 which took quite a nihilist approach to the task of selecting work:

The diversity of the Curator of the Day and how they interacted with the work can be exemplified by Hüttner's endnote in the catalogue:

At the time of the realization of the project there was some rather loud critique towards the project. It was suggested that it offered a very traditional approach to the idea of how an exhibition might be made. In an interview with Barnaby Drabble the artist says.:

Another criticism of the project was that the individual artwork never got the attention it deserved. Hannah Rickards who was leading the gallery crew writes:

In a review for C: International Contemporary Art Magazine, Fergal Stapleton described the exhibition as "a game, mutative and feudal, with several tiers of collusion" and "a bid for curatorial practice as art, and for curatorial supremacy over its subject arts disciplines." In his PhD thesis Barnaby Drabble uses I am a Curator as one of three case studies. He quotes Stapleton and builds a severe critique to the project which he perceives as being elitist and self-promotional under the guise of being democratic. On a more positive note British sociologist and media theorist, David Gauntlett suggests that projects like I am a Curator expands art into being a visual sociology;

It is clear that, I am a Curator offered novel ways for the audience to interact with artwork and the idea of an exhibition. They were forced to deal with art in a more intimate way than in a traditional exhibition. This means that the art on display might have been visible to a smaller audience than in a normal situation and yet at the same time the intimacy, reflection and constant change of context that the work was perceived in, meant that the audience was offered the possibility to understand the complexities and contradictions of artwork on a more profound level. This experimental approach to authorship and authenticity offers opportunity for creative interpretations. This openness in its turn has led to that I am a Curator has been appropriated by various participants of the project as being 'their own' in publications and academic texts.

For the 10 year anniversary of I am a Curator David Roberts Art Foundation in London invited Per Huttner to reflect on the project. In the press release it is stated that "The project also provoked profound questions about artistic identity and its relationship to collectivity. Both shifts, in turn, lead to changed perspectives on the relationship between artworks, exhibitions, curators and artists. In short, IAAC opened a floodgate of problematics that overwhelmed the team working with the project. It is therefore important to revisit these questions after 10 years have passed, and to see how they have influenced individual artistic processes and how they can guide us into meaningful future reflections on related issues." Per Hüttner was joined by artist/architect Céline Condorelli, neuroscientist Stephen Whitmarsh and Anette and Alberto Giacometti Foundation Director Véronique Wiesinger. In 2020, extensive documentation from I am a Curator was included in the exhibition "Anti-exhibition" at the Southwest School of Art in Austin, Texas curated by Chad Dawkins.

Åbäke, A-clip, Jack Albin. Roger Andersson, Roderick Barton, Patrick Bernier, Mariana Botey & The Invisible College, BRING OUT THE GARBAGE, Blair Butterfield, Lee Campbell, Lucia Cipriano, Celine Condorelli & Gavin Wade, Richard Couzins, Andrew Dadson, Daedalus, divine forces radio, Nathalia Edenmont, Sam Ely and Lynn Harris, Ivan Fayard, Jon Fawcett, Carlee Fernandez, Leslie Fratkin, Hans Jörgen Johansen, Anya Gallacio, Henrik Gistvall, Morten Goll, Colin Glen, Kate Grieve, Arni Gudmundsson, Joachim Hamou, Alexis Harding, Dan Hays, Sharon Hayes, Robby Herbst, Guillaume Janot, Melanie Keen, Arnold J .Kemp, Calum F Kerr, Charles LaBelle, Runo Lagomarsino, Lisa LeFeuvre, Fernand Léger^{[dubious – discuss]}, 21 March, Helen Marshall, Amitis Motevalli, Valérie Mrejen, Stéphanie Nava, Tone O. Nielsen, Michael Euyung Oh, Leonard Palmestål, James Porter, Nathaniel Rackowe, Laercio Redondo, Scott Rigby & Maciej Wisniewski, Lenke Rothman, Marina Roy, Reid Shier, Nebojsa Seric - Shoba, Stellar, Tommy Støckel, Tamura Satoru, Althea Thauberger, Johan Tirén, Christina Ulke & Neil Stuber, V3TO, Eti & Daniel Wade, Julia Warr, Gillian Wearing, Eva Weinmayr, Simon Woolham, Mario Ybarra, Jr.

• Per Hüttner: I am a Curator, 2005, 138 pages including 13 fold out colour pages, texts by Per Hüttner, Hannah Rickards, Celine Condorelli, Gavin Wade, Véronique Wiesinger, Duncan McLaren, Lisa LeFeuvre and Scott Rigby, language: English. Design by Byboth. Published by Chisenhale Gallery.ISBN 91-631-5132-4.

• Chisenhale Gallery website
• Per Hüttner website
• Support Structure website