How Curating Took Over The Art World

And now, a conversation about the phenomenon known as “curationism.”   As you might have observed, curating isn’t just for art experts in museums anymore.  The word “curator” can speak to the DJ in the club who creates a particular ambiance in a room, the Instagram poster who curates his or her kitchen table for the perfect photograph, or the festival director who chooses a weekend’s worth of films. We all live in a world of infinite choices, from what music to put on our phone, to what details to reveal about ourselves on a dating app, and so, in the common parlance, we are all curators of lives.  DavidBalzer is a Canadian author who has studied the history of curating in the art world and how the notion of curating has leaked into business and our culture at large.  He’s written a book that he’ll be talking about Sunday night at Red Emma’s Bookstore & Café in Baltimore.  It’s called Curationism: How Curating Took Over the Art World and Everything Else.   He joins us on the line from Toronto.  With me in the studio is MarcusCivin.   He’s an interdisciplinary artist, writer and curator, and the Acting Director of Curatorial Practice at MICA, that’s the graduate program incuratingat the MD Institute College of Art.