Curator

Curator

A curator is an individual hired by a museum or gallery to oversee and care for a collection of artworks or artefacts.

Museums and galleries typically employ multiple curators responsible for acquiring, maintaining, and enhancing their collections. These curators also organise exhibitions featuring both items from the collection and loaned works, with the aim of enlightening, educating, and inspiring the public.

Over the last two decades, the role of a curator has undergone significant changes. There are now freelance or independent curators who operate without institutional affiliations and bring their unique, unconventional methods to exhibition curation. These curators are invited to curate exhibitions or propose their own ideas for a variety of venues, spanning from traditional gallery spaces to unconventional settings and even online platforms.

Swiss curator Harald Szeemann, who served as the director of the Venice Biennale in 1999 and 2001, stands as a prominent example of an independent curator. Similarly, the artist and curator Matthew Higgs is recognized for his budget-friendly, do-it-yourself exhibitions, such as the unconventional art exhibition ‘Imprint’, which was distributed to people rather than being displayed in a traditional gallery space.

37 results found for "Curator"

video

El Anatsui

Pioneering Ghanaian artist El Anatsui makes monumental, ever-changing sculptures out of bottle caps and rubbish. His sublime artworks have made him an international sensation and earned him a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 56th Venice Biennale.

El Anatsui
article

Actual Size: Explained

Ed Ruscha has spent his life toying with everyday words and objects – from roadside gas stations and billboards to the Hollywood sign. Featuring the SPAM logo and tin, Actual Size is one of his most iconic artworks. Here’s how a strange, satirical painting captured the essence of America.

Actual Size: Explained
essay

The art movement that redefined Britain

What does it mean to be a British artist? The British Black Arts Movement introduced the world to a side of Britain that had been previously kept out of museums and galleries.

The art movement that redefined Britain
guide

How to collect art

So, you're an art lover. Either you buy art, or you'd like to – but where to channel this passion? You're in the right place. This guide covers everything you need to kickstart, develop and deepen a collection.

How to collect art
article

Norman Rosenthal on Anish Kapoor

Norman Rosenthal, guiding force behind the artist's first silkscreen print, reflects on his relationship with artworks by Anish Kapoor – shiny, dirty and sublime – since they first crossed paths in 1978.

Norman Rosenthal on Anish Kapoor
essay

Art in the Age of Femme Pleasure

As Janelle Monáe’s new album heralds the age of pleasure, femme visual artists are also imagining sexualities liberated from the male gaze.

Art in the Age of Femme Pleasure
essay

Is racism the price we pay for representation?

Tschabalala Self’s sculpture was vandalised by racists who painted her skin white – symbolically erasing exactly what it was intended to represent.

Is racism the price we pay for representation?
interview

Gemma Rolls-Bentley's Collection

For Gemma Rolls-Bentley, collecting begins with understanding your own values and what you represent. As a curator and creative consultant, this is how she approaches her own collection as well as those she builds for others – guided by the idea that art should hold real meaning for those who spend time with it. The art that fills her South London home is a reflection of the queer family she is creating with her wife, poet and dementia specialist, Danielle Wilde.

Gemma Rolls-Bentley's Collection
video

Barry McGee

This iconic artist has been doing graffiti for over 40 years. World-class museums and galleries revere his work, but he’s never stopped tagging the streets.

Barry McGee
interview

The Changing Face of African Art

Raphael Dapaah is the founder of Dapaah Gallery – an art agency and consultancy specialising in art from Africa and the global diaspora. This Black History Month we sat down with him for an open conversation about his journey into the art world, and the triumphs and challenges facing Black artists today.

The Changing Face of African Art
video

Lubaina Himid

Lubaina Himid is the Turner Prize winning artist, curator and professor championing Black British art. Here's the story of how she got there.

Lubaina Himid
article

Hospital Rooms

A new partnership with Hospital Rooms will support their inspiring work advocating and enacting the ways in which art can impact mental health.

Hospital Rooms
video

In conversation: Dmitri Cherniak at LACMA

After the acquisition of Ringers #962 into LACMA's collection, Generative artist Dmitri Cherniak and LACMA Curator Dhyandra Lawson discuss the artistry of systems, curating randomness, and the origins of Ringers.

In conversation: Dmitri Cherniak at LACMA
article

Inner Visions 03

With a collection of hand-finished works, curator Larry Ossei-Mensah considers storytelling as provocation.

Inner Visions 03
interview

Gisela McDaniel & Gemma Rolls-Bentley

Ahead of a hand-finished debut collaboration, Gisela McDaniel explains the enduring and vital precedence of her sitters' stories.

Gisela McDaniel & Gemma Rolls-Bentley
article

Avant Arte in Accra

A series of studio visits in the Ghanaian capital.

Avant Arte in Accra
article

Jenny Holzer: HURT EARTH

In a series of monumental light projections, HURT EARTH, art icon Jenny Holzer prompts urgent environmental action. Words from more than 40 global climate activists appear across the UK to coincide with COP26.

Jenny Holzer: HURT EARTH
article

Curated by Aindrea Emelife: We Are History

Art historian, writer and curator Aindrea Emelife introduces hand-finished editions from Shannon Bono, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones and Sola Olulode.

Curated by Aindrea Emelife: We Are History
article

Inner Visions 02

For the second instalment of Inner Visions, Larry Ossei-Mensah introduces a series of unprecedented works by New York-based artists Tau Lewis and Ludovic Nkoth.

Inner Visions 02
interview

In conversation: Larry Ossei-Mensah & Christian Luiten

Ahead of the first launch in our new Inner Visions series, we caught up with the project’s curator Larry Ossei-Mensah on Clubhouse in a conversation hosted by Avant Arte co-founder Christian Luiten.

In conversation: Larry Ossei-Mensah & Christian Luiten
interview

Inner Visions 01

In his first collaboration with Avant Arte, critic and curator Larry Ossei-Mensah introduces three artists, Grace Lynne Haynes, Ferrari Sheppard and Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe

Inner Visions 01
interview

Interview with Michael Kinsbergen

Michael started collecting contemporary art in 1998 as a way of escaping the structure and rhythm of his daily work. We speak to him about his journey through the art world.

Interview with Michael Kinsbergen
Artist

Hilary Pecis

American artist Hilary Pecis was born 1979 in Fullerton, California, and now lives and works in Los Angeles.

Hilary Pecis
Artist

Eddie Martinez

Eddie Martinez (he/him) was born in 1977 at the Groton Naval Submarine Base in Connecticut, United States, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Eddie Martinez
Artist

Katherina Olschbaur

Katherina Olschbaur (she/her) was born in 1983 in Bregenz, Austria. Since 2017, she has lived and worked in Los Angeles, USA.

Katherina Olschbaur
Artist

Elmgreen & Dragset

Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset were born in the 1960s in Denmark and Norway, and have worked as an artist duo since 1995.

Elmgreen & Dragset
Print

Are you watching?

Gisela McDaniel redresses portraiture traditions with luminous paintings that foreground overlooked voices and provide sites for collective healing.Are you watching?, a self portrait, layers an archival pigment print with 4 silkscreen layers and raised varnish details. Drawing on techniques and materials used throughout the artist’s practice, each print will be embellished by hand with shells, beads and neon pink acrylic paint.

“When I’m doing self portraiture, it’s a moment to check in with myself. Sometimes I’m also able to talk about things that I wouldn’t with somebody else’s painting – I have a little more leeway to tell my own story.”
Similarly to the artist’s original canvases, each print is accompanied by
an audio work – in this case accessed via a QR code printed on the accompanying certificate of authenticity.Inner Visions
McDaniel’s prints will be released alongside hand-finished editions by Khari Turner and Patrick Quarm in the third instalment of curator Larry Ossei-Mensah’s series, Inner Visions.
“For this launch, I was drawn to artists that push past a painting being ‘just a picture.’ The use of audio in Gisela’s work makes it impossible to overlook the depth and nuance of her sitters’ stories. Her edition is a self portrait, so in this case the story is her own.” - Larry Ossei-Mensah

Are you watching?
Print

Tinko, Tinko in pretty aunty-give-me-cake

Reconstructing identity through portraiture, Ekene Emeka-Maduka’s work emerges from her nuanced reflections on heritage, femininity, Blackness and culture.Maduka’s first Avant Arte release is conceived in collaboration with critic and curator Larry Ossei-Mensah. Each is finished with a hand-painted layer of oil and gesso, in which Ekene has added significant detail, depth and texture to the entirety of the surface — positioning the works in an exciting liminal space between edition and original.

Tinko, Tinko in pretty aunty-give-me-cake

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Your questions, answered

Parra's studio, with Parra at the centre, his back to the camera as he works on the large painting takes centre stage, showing a faceless blue woman in a striped dress, painted in red, purple, blue and teal. The studio is full of brightly coloured paints, with a large window on the right and a patterned rug across the floor under the painting.