A platform for the study of curatorial culture based in Taiwan
Curatography, the first bilingual online platform in Taiwan for discourse on contemporary art and curatorial culture, is scheduled to go online April 30, 2020. Commissioned by Taiwan’s National Culture and Arts Foundation and run by the Curating Asia International (CAI), Curatography was created in Taiwan with the aim of building connections within and between Asia’s international curatorial networks. Published in both Chinese and English, the e-journal will invite international curators, artists, and cultural researchers to engage in inter-cultural dialogue through publication of essays, and more broadly build a framework for publishing, lectures, symposia and curatorial praxis. The e-journal’s first issue includes essays by Palais de Tokyo curator Yoann Gourmel and KADIST curator Elodie Royer, Filipina art researcher Eileen Legaspi Ramirez, and Taiwanese curator Hongjohn Lin.
The purpose of Curatography as a collective writing project is to reflect on curation, to encourage the construction of interdisciplinary knowledge on contemporary Asia, and to pull together writings on the most influential curatorial practices now guiding cultural production. “Curatography,” or the science of curation, is not only a response to the different dynamics of curation, but also a study of its historical significance, fixed or fluid, and an attempt to define its relative discursive positions today. As the etymology of the words for “curator”, “curation” and so on derive from Latin roots meaning “treatment” or “care,” the neologism “curatography” further implies “the production of texts as a means of care or therapy.”
The role of the curator within the global art sphere is constantly changing, and in the 21st century, her positions and trajectories have become increasingly diverse. Broadly defined, “curation” refers to the realization or implementation of any sort of exhibition, from museums of contemporary art to online shopping websites, and “curators” have now become an indispensable part of our daily life, both in and beyond the field of art. With Curatography, we attempt to heal the “amnesia” of the white cube gallery model, with its constantly replaced exhibitions, by creating a space to reflect on different curatorial approaches, techniques, and contexts for research and investigation. At the same time, we will continue to explore the different roles played by curation in contemporary society and how these continue to redefine the dimensions of curatorial subjects and themes. Our goals for Curatography are to prove that democracy provides the basic, underlying spirit of the curation of contemporary art, and to promote writing of an original or artistic nature.
Curatography is an outgrowth of the accumulated achievements of recent decades of various grants from Taiwan’s National Culture and Arts Foundation (NCAF) and other curation-themed events and conferences. In 2018, the NCAF established ARTWAVE - Taiwan International Arts Network platform, which works to vertically integrate Taiwan’s key contemporary arts initiatives, including the Taiwan Pavilions Initiative, Curators’ Intensive Taipei (CIT) International Conference and Youth Curatorial Workshop, and the Asian Curatorial Forum, as well as to horizontally connect with other local and overseas professionals and organizations. In order to further expand Taiwan’s international networks, the Foundation commissioned to establish “Curating Asia International (CAI)” and build Taiwan’s first online publishing platform with the aim of exploring the global curatorial culture of contemporary art. The result is “Curatography.”
For 2020, Curatography has invited an editorial team consisting of Taiwanese curators Manray Hsu, Hongjohn Lin, Sandy Hsiu-chih Lo, and I-Wen Chang. We have further called upon a group of important international cultural practitioners, curators, artists, and scholars, who will contribute as writers, including Raqs Media Collective (India), Ade Darmawan and Mirwan Andan / Ruangrupa (Indonesia), the curatorial team of the 15th Kassel Documenta Exhibition (2022), Sophie Goltz, assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University, Yoann Gourmel, curator at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, independent curator and art critic Jau-lan Guo (Taiwan), curator Pawit Mahasarinand (Thailand), Eileen Legaspi Ramirez, scholar from the Philippines, Elodie Royer, institutional curator at KADIST, and Berlin based curator and researcher Miya Yoshida .
