Diamond in the Rough (On curator and artist)

During my first week in Saigon, I had the opportunity to see the artist Sopheap Pich speak about his work and history. He was born in Cambodia, raised and educated in the US, and now lives and works outside of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. His presentation was very candid and sincere – one of the best I’ve seen. What particularly struck me was the story of how he began to focus on the Rattan sculptures that are now his best-known works.

A curator from the French Institute in Phnom Penh visited his studio and spotted a small, lung-shaped sculpture made of Rattan purchased from a furniture manufacturer across the street from his studio. The sculpture was an experiment, not directly related to the other works the artist was making at the time. He and the curator spoke about the object’s merits for the entire visit and afterward the artist knew that ‘[he] was on to something’. A few years after committing to Rattan as a medium – he has gone from ‘off the map,’ to showing his work within the hallowed halls of the Asian Art collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York (where I was introduced to his work in 2013).

This story is an example of the importance of the curator’s objective gaze – and how he / she has the unique ability to see through the chaos of the studio, to potentially find the ‘diamond-in-the-rough.’ From a studio visit to an executed exhibition, the way a curator sees and responds to work is something wholly unique to the person trained to view art through that lens and from that specific position. Storr uses the literary editor as an analogy to the curator’s relationship to both artist and institution. “…The exhibition-maker is the first, most-critical viewer in the way that an editor is the first, most critical reader.”

Once the work leaves the studio for an exhibition, the relationship between artist and curator shifts. The curator assumes the position of exhibition-maker and must make every move in service to his/her vision of the show. Storr asserts that in order to have a successful exhibition, the curator must labor with the authority and vision of the film director guaranteed final cut. The exhibition-maker must not defer to the will of the artist to the detriment of any part that would risk weakening the whole. Kipnis is aware of the danger of the artist acting as exhibition-maker - “The lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client.” He then qualifies this remark with an example of a Luc Tuymans show curated by the artist. Schaffner presents Richard Tuttle as an artist who actively participated in the presentation of his labels in connection with his work. Tuttle inverts the challenge that wall texts and museum conventions present by integrating them into the installation. This liberty could only be granted to the artist’s discretion – yet in Storr’s world, the exhibition-maker may insist on different strategies.

The relationship between curator and artist is symbiotic. Both positions offer unique character and ways of seeing to the field of the other. The power dynamics exist within the parameters that each pair or group establishes. Of utmost importance within these parameters is to hear not the voice of the curator, artist, or institution – but let the work sound.