Christian Jankowski, the German artist-curator at the helm of Manifesta 11 in Zurich (until 18 September), which opened just before Art Basel, is among a small but growing number of contemporary artists who are organising major biennials worldwide. The Delhi-based artist group, Raqs Media Collective, were appointed earlier this year as curators of the 11th Shanghai Biennale at the Power Station of Art (11 November-12 March 2017), while the New York-based art collective DIS has organised the ninth Berlin Biennale, which opened earlier this month (until 18 September).
We asked four artists-cum-curators how they juggle the two roles and manage the issues around organising a high-profile exhibition. As well as Jankowski, we spoke to: Michelle Grabner, the co-curator of the 2014 Whitney Biennial; the Indian artist Sudarshan Shetty, the curator of the third edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (12 December-29 March 2017); the artist Bose Krishnamachari, who co-organised the inaugural Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2012, and later this year will organise the inaugural Yinchuan Biennial at the Museum of Contemporary Art Yinchuan in north-west China (9 September-18 December).
Do artists bring different insights and experiences as biennial curators? Christian Jankowski: Every artist brings something different to curating. From what I can tell, artists have less of a routine. That can work to your advantage, but it can also work against you. If you aren’t a professional actor, the first take usually has the best chance of being good.
Michelle Grabner: Artists foreground different sets of values when they take on curatorial projects, including biennials. They are no more or less capable of organising large-scale exhibitions than professional curators. Of course, artists work with institutions and curators all the time as “exhibiting artists”, but that is a radically different experience from being on the other side and organising an exhibition from deep within the institutional body. If artists have a disadvantage, it comes from not fully understanding institutional culture.
Sudarshan Shetty: I do not know if artists are more equipped to organise biennials. Apart from thinking about the role of a curator, the questions I ask myself are what directions one must [take] as a curator of a biennial in this part of the world [Kerala, southern India].
Bose Krishnamachari: An artist’s advantage as a curator is that he or she would know the process of working with creative materials and the practice, and would be well versed with spaces: interiors, architecture, landscapes.
Has organising a biennial changed your view of curators? Jankowski: To an extent. I’ve seen first hand
that their world is full of ups and downs too. I don’t necessarily like my curator friends more because of this experiment, but I don’t dislike them more, either.
Krishnamachari: I have moved from conceptualising and editing to curating gradually because there is a paucity of curators who have done extensive research on India. If you look at any international curatorial project, you will come across the same predictable names. My experience is a case in point. Only a few curators have visited my studio during the past 25 years of my career.
Grabner: Curators are simple to make out. Institutions, however, are intricate social organisms.
Is selecting the artists a challenge? Were you drawn to artists who are linked to your own practice in any way? Jankowski: It is a challenge, and I have to admit that the selection of 30 artists also could have been different. Some of the artists’ practices are similar to mine, and some are very different.
Shetty: While I look at works that will be a part of the biennial, I see that some of them, if not all, evoke things that I am deeply concerned with, within my own practice as an artist.
Krishnamachari: As the curator of the first edition of Yinchuan Biennale, which opens in September, I am trying to bring together various faculties that would define the concept that touches upon everything, from aesthetics to philosophy, economics, ecology and technology.
Grabner: My aim in curating is to work with artists who are critical and passionate about art and art-making. So yes, I am drawn to artists who champion the same ethical relationship to art.
But that is not the same as selecting artists who share similarities to my studio practice.
What did you discover during the selection process about how you work best? Shetty: Every studio visit or an encounter with a practice, even far apart from my own, I invariably find myself looking back into the limitations of my own practice. There are quite a few pieces that are especially made for the biennial, and being a part of the making and looking at the proposed dissemination of some of these works has been rewarding.
Grabner: Nothing makes me happier than being able to offer artists resources to make new work, or to provide artists with a new exhibition context and a new audience. However, I have no interest in teaming up with artists from a curatorial position. With the offer of freedom and responsibility, I fully trust that artists will make the work they need to make without my opinions.
What is the best biennial you’ve ever seen? Jankowski: Harald Szeemann’s 1999 Venice Biennale.
Krishnamachari: I was mightily impressed by the 20th Sydney Biennale, curated by Stephanie Rosenthal [closed 5 June].
Grabner: The 1991 Carnegie International, curated by Lynne Cooke and Mark Francis.
Venice and beyond: Biennials organised by artist-curators
Berlin Biennale
The New York-based collective DIS, described in the US press as a “post-internet art collective”, have taken the reins at this year’s Berlin Bienniale (until 18 September). A cryptic biennial statement released by DIS posed quandaries such as: “performance art may or may not be the future of advanced interior design and performers may or may not be paid sick-days.” Participating artists include Simon Fujiwara and Amalia Ulman. In 2014, DIS launched a “diffusion line for art”, presenting products in an exhibition posing as a retail store at the Red Bull Studios in New York.
Shanghai Biennale
The Delhi-based artist collective, Raqs Media Collective, were appointed earlier this year as curators of the forthcoming 11th Shanghai Biennale at the Power Station of Art (11 November-12 March 2017). The biennial, entitled Why Not Ask Again? Maneuvers, Disputations and Stories, is inspired by the 1960s Indian New Wave cinema director Ritwik Ghatak. According to a biennial statement: “While Raqs are committed to a biennial that engages its audience intellectually, they are also clear that they do not see it as a diversion for ‘insiders’, or those who think they are ‘in the know’.”
Venice Biennale
A handful of high-profile artists have overseen national pavilions at the Venice Biennale, including Luc Tuymans, who organised an exhibition of Angel Vergara’s work at the 2011 event. In 2007, the French artist Sophie Calle placed an advertisement in a newspaper seeking a curator for the French pavilion; the veteran artist Daniel Buren was the successful applicant. The Scandinavian duo Elmgreen & Dragset caused a stir at the 2009 Biennale with their presentation, The Collectors (visitors were startled on seeing a dead body—a mannequin—floating in a swimming pool). The pair will curate the 15th Istanbul Biennial next year. “It will be an exhibition that will have a close relationship with the city, will welcome performative works, and will be experimental with a sense of humour,” says Bige Örer, the biennial director.