Curator -- a burgeoning profession in China
www.chinaview.cn 2004-11-11 10:50:49
BEIJING, Nov. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- Curator is a title which appears frequently at art exhibitions and galleries in western countries, but is a new profession to many Chinese.
At the ongoing Shanghai Biennial, the carefully selection of works, avant-garde design and the theme: "Techniques of the visible" have all attracted widespread attention and at the same time the curators of the exhibition have been brought under the spotlight.
Zhang Qing was the curator for the Shanghai biennial in 2000 and is also working for this year's biennial.
Being a curator actually started in the late 1980s.
"My first exhibition was in 1988, I myself is an artist. At that time, there was no such word as a curator, I was simply organizing an art work show," said Zhang.
The profession of Curator has been developing for many decades in western countries. These people work in galleries and museums, and take charge of building up art collections, researching art information, and exhibiting art works. But this profession was something that Chinese artists of just a decade or two ago couldn't understand.
"Not until in 1993 when a curator from the famous Venice Biennial came to China, did we know that holding an exhibition needs a curator. From then on, as more and more contemporary artists went overseas to give shows, this word and this function became better understood."
According to Zhang Qing, a curator is an all round expert in this field: he or she must be well acquainted with the dynamics of art circles around the world.
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