London : Day 3

Who owns the creation of a work of art or exhibition? Who has authorship of a creative idea? These questions revolve around the roles and relationship between Artist and Curator and this was the topic of focus within lectures today, using the essay Multiple Authorship by Boris Groys as a catalyst for this discussion.

Multiple Authorship  can be found in
Art Power by Boris Groys

The roles of the artist and curator have fundamentally changed. Once distinct and conflicting practices; artists concerned with the making and the curator selecting the work/artists. The artist was an author and the curator a mediator, one an individual the other a member of the institution. Creation was primary, selection, secondary.

Today it is difficult to distinguish between the two and this was mostly due to a shift in the way we view art objects. Duchamp began the discourse of selecting objects, placing them within gallery contexts and thereby creating art. Therefore the creative act became the act of selection bringing increased freedom to both parties as the lines have crossed.

Artists and curators are selectors. Artists choose their medium, subject, who they want to work/collaborate with, how their work it presented. Curators do the same, choosing an artist is therefore choosing a medium or subject, they select work for exhibitions. The museum/gallery select which curators to work with and financial bodies select which galleries to fund. Therefore exhibitions can be seen as hybrid forms made of multiple authorship's. Unable to be boiled down to one sovereign author. 

So does this mean people can only be partial authors? Is anything ever created with one voice?