Curatorial ethics and indeterminacy of practice

Abstract

This article defines “curatorial ethics” as a notion that has to be configured and constantly revisited by an independent curator throughout her practice. By inquiring into the personal motives, biases and drives, she would establish her own ethical position, convert it into a professional ethic and apply it to judge her own professional performance and her colleagues. Such perspective opposes the traditional understanding a professional ethic as a set of unitary guidelines to be passed to specialists (i.e., via education or early career). The notion of curatorial responsibility is redefined accordingly, and with conceptual inspiration from Gilles Deleuze and Karen Barad’s concepts of “becoming” (Deleuze) and “intra-action” (Barad). A curator is addressed as accountable for configuring her practice in response to agendas and actions of other parties involved in the art project. That is, for facilitating the co-constitution of individual subject positions and practices via opening up herself to the terrors and potentials of unprecedented self-transformation.