There are many ways to approach the task of curating an exhibition. This page looks at a range of initial curatorial strategies to think about when embarking on a project. The issues raised are relevant to a range of practices in different contexts and should help strengthen your project and its intentions. For any exhibition project you should have an argument for these three questions:

1. Why this work?
2. Where now?
3. Why here?

The following issues should help you explore these issues and develop a rationale that answers them.

Have an argument

When curating a project and exploring work, it's important to define your perspective or have an argument. The research should avoid being didactic or a search for proof for your thesis; rather the work should inform or challenge your argument.

Having an argument or reference helps you to discover work. Without this guiding argument there is too much work to see and it's impossible to take an objective stand. All curating is subject to an argument, no matter how ‘open’ it is. The classic example is open forums, where work is openly invited for exhibition. These work in a variety of fashions and are often filtered, but even when all the work that is submitted is shown, this work has been filtered through the networks and people that were invited to submit work. There is no impartiality, no neutrality and it's important to define your standpoint so it can be argued and debated, and through being open and acknowleding these influences your project can develop and mature.

Creating a transparent programme

Curating is about creating a hypothesis and testing it. In order to select work and define your project a conceptual framework is often essential to define what it is you are looking for. This shouldn’t be restrictive but should operate to open up and help define what you are looking at; this can be called “selective perception”. Here Peter Weibel describes the importance of a conceptual framework and its role in curating artists’ work:

“When you go to a studio, or when you look at a paper you need what is called 'selective perception'. Without a theory in mind you might look through a magazine and not even realize what you are looking at. If you don't have this selective criteria in mind, then you won't find the interesting works. This is the starting point. Then you ask artists, then you read magazines, then you ask for recommendations from artists, from curators, and you follow every little piece of paper you find. But first you have to have a theoretical framework.” (1) Peter Weibel

When presenting work to an audience it's important to provide them with your criteria in someway to state why you selected the work you did. Its important to allow the audience into some of the decisions that led to the selection of work, as this defines the perspective and makes the intentions transparent and easier for people to relate to them.

Follow what artists are doing

“A museum has to follow what artists are doing. Art history has to follow art. Not the opposite.” (2) Peter Weibel

Be responsive and open to change. When curating new work it is important to follow what artists are doing and respond to that, rather than attempting to impose upon contemporary work. This is the constant dialectic of curating. It is a balance between being open and responsive to what artists are doing, while also having an argument and attempting to understand and order what is being produced. These two facets create the tension that makes presenting work exciting for curators and audiences.

Art and culture are in constant flux and its history is written and rewritten. It is important to think about the histories of art in the plural rather than in the singular. History needs to be questioned and re-examined constantly, and one of the key ways to do this is through exhibition, where work is brought to the surface for fresh examination and evaluation. Contemporary work should challenge these histories and when approaching it be informed of work that has preceded it, but aim to show how contemporary work differs and the alternative directions it proposes. Being receptive to these propositions is necessary as it opens work and assumptions about work to examination and debate. This is also what distances exhibition from standard ideas of educating people with a singular history. Through exhibition you can make a more explicit emphasis of the argument that you are pursuing.

Work in reference to wider culture

Exhibition projects emerge from collisions between ideas, interests, intentions and between organisations and individuals, but projects also emerge from collisions with a broader culture. When considering and developing a project be aware of the wider context that the work will be exhibited within. Art and moving image culture is understood and accessed from many directions and your project should be aware of these issues as well as well artists' work and exhibitions.

Exhibition has a place within the much broader context of history, politics, society, popular culture, theory, philosophy, etc. Positioning art within this broader culture is essential and should inform the central argument for any exhibition in some way. As opposed to an archive or collection where access is limited every exhibition is an intervention in someway into a broader culture, so consider how it reverberates within the arts but also within broader contexts as well.

Finding the right time

Often projects emerge from a variety of things coming together. This can often be time-specific, meaning a project would emerge in parallel or response to a specific event or cultural climate. For instance, your project could relate to a significant new work by an artist, a parallel event to relate to, or the project links in with a wider cultural/social/political shift or trend.

When considering embarking on a project ask the question its important to ask ‘Why now?’ This is especially pertinent if you're working on the project independently, but it's also important for venues or regular events that you consider how the work resonates in the current time.

On a more practical note be aware of the context that the work is being shown in – what else is happening in the area at that time both socially and culturally? Be aware of the demands you are making on your audience and think carefully about when to host screenings so people will be able and willing to attend.

Exhibition and screenings should create a friction with the present and the past as Stefanie Schulte Strathaus states:

“I am not asking programmers always to follow the latest fashion, but rather to question continually their own work, to reflect on the of creating cinema. Maybe this means not necessarily showing different films differently than commercial movie houses, but simply showing them differently from the last time.” (3)

The long gesticulation of exhibition projects (ranging anywhere from a few months to a few years) means it is often hard to be responsive, but it is still important to think about how the work relates to longer term events or contexts that you can plan for. For instance, this could be a big exhibition or cultural event, a significant date or anniversary, but also an issues that people are increasingly discussing. Talk to other cultural organisations to make sure your project will not clash un-harmoniously, or even to explore the possibility of collaboration in some way.