Dialogues on Curating (Part II)
Dialogues on Curating (Part II) is being held in collaboration between Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council, Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art and India International Centre. [dated January 2011]

January 18-19, 2011 10:30 am – 5:00 pm Venue: IIC Annexe, Lecture Hall

Collaboration between Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council, Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art and India International Centre

Over the past six months, the figure of the curator has publicly been under the lens in India. Suddenly, the curator is the subject of special issues of magazines, the theme of seminars and workshops, and the focus of an ambitious initiative by a major arts funding body. These discussions have examined the relationship between the artist and the curator; the opportunities and institutional frameworks that make curatorial work possible in India; the anxieties and challenges of curating in a 'flat' world. While these discussions map out the contemporary terrain of Indian curatorial practices, they also look back at the brief history of curating in India, seeking patterns of intention, key moments and expositions, exemplars and precursors. The field of curating plays a crucial formative role within the Indian art scene, and this dialogue is likely to afford curators the space to evaluate their spheres of operation and influence, the development of public discourse in contemporary art and he consequences these have art-historically. It is our hope that we will be able to build an exchange through this workshop between groups of curators who operate in dissimilar contexts of Switzerland, Britain and South Asia, with vastly different infrastructures, and yet are deeply engaged in similar predicaments and common concerns.

The history of museums and exhibition-making is much deeper in Switzerland and Britain than in India. Over the last two hundred years, both of these European countries have developed a fine network of institutions that provide platforms and frameworks for the exhibition of art. These range from the sanctified 'national' institutions, to old and new settings for internationalisms/globalisms; academic forums to commercial enterprises; municipal museums to underground subcultures in the megapolis. In contrast, the spaces for the viewing and collection of Indian art – especially modern and contemporary Indian art – are few. The major institutions mandated by the state have dwindled in relevance compared to the agencies of an often overheated marketplace. The imperatives of cultural diplomacy which had once created the few opportunities for 'international' exchange have now given way to busy but less predictable set of exchanges partly catalysed by the worldwide web. While India might not attempt to reproduce the complex network of art institutions found in Europe, its own network of art-related organizations seems set to grow prodigiously. The question is how does the curator seize the opportunities afforded by this moment of instability and potential? Can Indian curators gain insights not just into new possibilities for exhibitions, but new possibilities for the institutions and practices of exhibition-making itself?

Panels and Themes
January 18, 2011 Media’s Materialities In this panel, we would like to invite three curators who work in specific media – for example photography or new media - to discuss the challenges, issues and poetic possibilities of their work. Each set of mediumistic practices makes its own demands vis a vis the exhibition space and the audience while also raising specific question about ethics, about art-ness, about vanguardism and comprehensibility, about evanescence and permanence, about valuations and marketability. We invite curators who have had to deal with these issues through their long-term engagement with specific media, to share their processes and concerns with us, as well as to deliberate on the roles and challenges of institutions devoted to exhibiting and collecting specialized media – new and old. Exhibition in Process Circuits of exhibition tend to be event-oriented, where the exhibition as the product towards which all curatorial work should be geared. However, in actual practice, for the curators, artists, designers, and others involved in the making of exhibition, the greatest gains may be intangible. The shifting geographies and the ever-expanding networks lead to new encounters and open up new possibilities; as the curator pulls together the exhibition that he promised in his concept note, his mind may already be racing ahead to new possibilities. The exhibition as an event makes discursive and critical engagements possible, which may well exceed the exhibition's own horizons. The exhibition becomes a transitional moment in a longer life of an idea.

January 19, 2011
Representations and Responsibilities For many curators, major exhibition opportunities are 'officially ' sanctioned ones. When one is conscious of representing one's nation, say, or an 'outsider' perspective – does this weigh upon the curatorial project, or does it give clarity and sharpness to the work at hand? If one is working in an institution with a celebrated history, how does one position oneself in relation to its, and one's own, past? What is the role of individuals and institutions in maximizing the possibilities of intercultural exchange, working as they do through the many and sometimes conflicting mandates. Publics for Art Even as the parameters of public art are being widely debated, there is an inverse interest in how art converses with its publics. These range from the kind of initiatives made by curators and art educators within art institutions to reach out to the viewer, to a whole range of participatory and collaborative practices set afloat by curators and artists alike in the public domain. In many cases you see the curator taking on the role of an art educator, exploring the didactic potential of the exhibition. How do curators work with this nebulous category of the audience and how does it inform their making of the exhibition?

Speakers and Moderators
Nancy Adajania, independent Art Critic, Curator and Cultural Theorist, Mumbai
Daniel Baumann, Art Historian, Writer and Curator of Carnegie International 2013 in Pittsburg
Christiane Brosius, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Anthropology, South Asia Institute of the University of Heidelberg, Germany
Marianne Burki, Head of Visual Arts, Swiss Arts Council, Pro Helvetia, Zurich
Sorcha Carey, Director, Edinburgh Art Festival
Susan Hapgood, Art Historian, Curator and Senior Advisor for Independent Curators International, New York
Geeta Kapur, independent art critic, curator and cultural theorist, New Delhi
Helen Legg, Director, Spike Island
Andrea Rose, Director, Visual Arts, British Council
Sabine Schaschl, Director and Curator Kunsthaus Baselland, Muttenz/Basel
Kavita Singh, Art Historian and Associate Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU, New Delhi Gayatri Sinha, independent curator and art critic
Urs Stahel, Director, Curator and Author of Fotomuseum Winterthur
Raqs Media Collective, artist collective/ curators/ media practitioners
Mirjam Varadinis, Curator, Kunsthaus Zurich

(Conceptualized by Dr Kavita Singh and Vidya Shivadas)