Paper short abstract:

Distinguishing between Chinese-style 'accumulatory curatorship' and Western-style autonomous curatorship, I explore different constructions of curatorial authority for validating and authenticating art in Chinese and non-Chinese settings.

Paper long abstract:

In the Chinese artworld an inordinate amount of importance is attached to the curator - in museums but also in commercial settings like art fairs and galleries. Sometimes the name of the curator seems more important than the artist's. Interviewees stressed that it was important for artists to have a 'big name' curator associated with their work, and often asked their gallerist to have a well-known curator curate their exhibition. Curators thus occupied an important position as gatekeepers and, at the same time, validators of the artist(s) and art works.

But curatorship is a recent profession in China, and its professional credentials seem predicated on an accumulation of artistic positions, i.e. curators often combined a variety of different professional/occupational positions (such as artist, art professor, art researcher, art critic/writer, festival organizer, museum director), and the more positions they accumulated, the more prestigious their verdict. Such construction of validating authority through accumulation of institutional positions in the artworld seems to contrast with the Western ideal (but not necessarily reality) of asserting validating authority through autonomy, that is the seeming avoidance of conflict of interest.

In this paper I explore when Chinese-style 'accumulatory curatorship' suffices for artists who wish to partake in the global art scene, and when they feel forced to be validated by international (Western) curators for shows abroad. In other words, in this paper I explore different avenues of authentication and authorization through different constructions of curatorial authority, i.e. accumulation and separation of functions.