Amira El-Naqeeb travelled to the US to explore the concept of art curation -- one that is still unfamiliar in Egypt Having been lucky enough to gain an award from the US-based Institute of Visual Arts and Journalism recently, I was able to visit many different art galleries and art spaces in the institute's home city of Washington DC. Visiting 34 or more museums in a short period of time can make your head spin. As some of my fellow award-winners put it, the whole experience was "like living in an art bubble". We were practically eating, drinking and breathing art. The idea behind the programme was to introduce 12 journalists from around the world who write about art to 12 other arts journalists from different states in the United States and to take the whole group on visits to museums, art galleries and alternative art spaces. The institute also facilitated writing workshops for the recipients, allowing us to analyse art in different ways and to hear the different ways members of the group looked at art. Visiting museums such as the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, or the Philadelphia Museum of Art, one needs to take a deep breath and then dive in. It can be something of a "nose dive", given the need to absorb the sheer number of exhibits inside. Later, going through the photographs I had taken on these visits, I noticed that I had taken pictures of the details: the layout of the galleries; the fonts the curators had used for the labels or in their introductions to an artist; the ways paintings were framed; the colours of the walls of the galleries in which the works had been displayed. What was it that made me pay attention to these things to the detriment of the works of art themselves? It was the evidence they provided of the work of the curators, curation being defined as "the process of identification and organisation of artworks or museum objects in a collection in order to further knowledge." According to Jack Rasmussen, director and curator of the American University Museum in Washington DC, the verb "to curate" and its derivatives do not, properly speaking, refer to art at all. A "curate," he points out, is a junior priest, someone who, in the Christian religion, takes care of souls. The word comes from the Latin word cura which in Roman mythology referred to the goddess who was believed to have created humans from clay. Over the centuries, the word "curator" began to be applied to people looking after museum collections. People who work with living artists have also become known as curators, and, according to Dan Siedell, a professor of art history at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and a former curator at the Sheldon Museum of Art, the profession of curator as we know it today dates back to the rise of modern museums in Europe and the United States in the 19th century. "The curator has become a prevalent character in the art world since the time of the infamous Modernist artist Marcel Duchamp. By selecting objects, like a shovel or a urinal, readymade objects, and then calling them works of art, Duchamp gave the curator, as the person who selects objects and discerns value, a more proactive role in museums and galleries," Siedell says. My first real encounter with the work of a curator was in the United States, since I had not previously suspected the impact curators could have on the works on show in exhibitions, being able either to highlight, or to downplay, works and artists. The Smithsonian American Art Museum's Lincoln Gallery provides a textbook example of the role of the curator in a modern museum. Starting from the choice of the wall colour, furniture design, and the colour and design of flooring, the curator creates an environment that speaks one language in relation to the works of art on show. The Lincoln Gallery is part of the museum's permanent collection, and the decorative elements in the gallery space, all of which are the responsibility of the curators, will change with the next hang of the galleries. Curatorial input into this space is substantial. However, the real surprise lies not so much in the works of art that have been chosen for display as in the relationships established between the works of art and their surroundings and how they are displayed. Another example came from the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. Here, director and founder of the museum Rebecca Alban Hoffberger explained how the museum hosts thematic exhibitions from different countries illustrating the idea of the visionary, such as dervishes from Turkey whirling to the accompaniment of poetry by Rumi. The exhibition was called "the Marriage between Art, Science, and Philosophy," and, featuring works by more than 100 visual artists, scientists and philosophers, it urged audiences to look again without preconceptions at how notions like light, number, colour and pattern can appear when viewed from fresh perspectives. What tools are needed for maximum curatorial impact? According to artist Samir Fouad, any successful exhibition must have the objective of delivering a message to the audience. In Egypt, we lack such a curatorial aim, and there is little driving force available for the mounting of properly curated exhibitions, Fouad says. "It's a question of passion and enthusiasm, and of the belief that curation is a life and death task. We also need to understand how to market a work of art and how to make a work of art appreciated by the target audience." Wagdi Habshi, a visual artist and former director of the Fine Arts Academy in Zamalek, echoes Fouad, saying that in the past Egypt did not possess the specialised people able to do this kind of work. The national museums were directed by officials who were graduates in art history, in other words academics, rather than curators, while the private galleries were commercial or artist spaces, and neither art dealers nor artists are necessarily good curators. Mohamed Abla, a recognised contemporary artist in both the international and local art scenes, also said in an interview with the Weekly that the profession of curator is still only weakly established in Egypt. For the curator's role to be strengthened, Abla said, it was necessary to train people who are not only aware of the local art scene, but are also familiar with the international art world. "The curator directs the taste of the audience," Abla said. "Therefore, he must know about politics, economics and marketing, in addition to art." Abla gives the example of the current international focus on Chinese art, according to him for political reasons. China is growing in strength politically and economically, and this is having effects on the international interest in Chinese art. Curators worldwide know each other, and they control international interest, for example in Chinese art, which reflects current political and economic trends. Current curatorial trends, Abla says, tend to take off from the lead given by the art scene in the United States, especially over the past 25 years or so. Giving an example of his own experience exhibiting internationally, Abla cites a group exhibition he joined in Bonn in Germany three years ago. The curator's role was to announce the idea behind the exhibition, and different artists were then brought in to illustrate it. "That is the work of the curator," Abla says. In Egypt, on the other hand, when Abla exhibits his work he deals only with the managers of the arts spaces concerned, making all the curatorial decisions himself. A further experience I gained in the United States came through a visit to the Lunder Conservation Centre in Washington DC, which promotes a form of conceptual art. Here, the idea is to break down the barriers that separate the audience from a work of art by making the process of art conservation visible. The Lunder Centre thus has glass conservation labs that are freely visited by the public. Such institutions are examples of the intellectual element involved in all curation. "The idea is the hero," commented Kent Wolagmott, a journalist on the Journal Star newspaper in Lincoln, Nebraska, and one of my colleagues on the Visual Arts and Journalism programme. Is there a chance that curation will now be taught in Egyptian institutes of fine art? "The chances are slim, since we do not have the qualified professors to teach it at the moment," Abla concludes regretfully.
