Curating with Care
book launch and discussion on curating as a caring practice
Monday, 3 April, 2023, at 6 pm
Škuc Gallery, Stari trg 21, 1000 Ljubljana
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Presentation of the book Curating with care (Routledge 2023) with co-editor Elke Krasny and chapter writers Petja Grafenauer, Brigita Miloš and Katja Kobolt of The Platform of Care: Collective Curatorial Modes of the n*a*i*l*s hacks*facts*fictions platform.
The volume Curating with Care (2023), edited by Elke Krasny (Academy of Arts Vienna) and Lara Perry (University of Brighton) brings over 20 authors’ reflections on ‘curating care’ – and presents a call to give curatorial attention to the primacy of care for all life and for more ‘caring curating’ that responds to the social, ecological and political analysis of curatorial caregiving.
Starting from the interdisciplinary and intergenerational artistic research project Corneous Stories (n*a*i*l*s hacks*facts*fictions platform, City of Women, District Berlin, Škuc Gallery, ALUO, Goethe-Institut Ljubljana, 2020), which opened a perspective on history and society through the prism of cosmetics and beauty labour, Petja Grafenauer (ALUO), Katja Kobolt (ZRC SAZU) and Brigita Miloš (University of Rijeka) contributed reflections on the ambivalence of cosmetics, curating and real-politics as care to the volume Curating with Care (2023).
Social and ecological struggles for a different planetary culture based on care and respect for the dignity of life are reflected in contemporary curatorial practices that explore human and non-human interdependence. The prevalence of themes of care in curating is a response to a dual crisis: the crisis of social and ecological care that characterizes global politics and the professional crisis of curating under the pressures of the increasingly commercialized cultural landscape. Foregrounding that all beings depend on each other for life and survival, this book collects theoretical essays, methodological challenges and case studies from curators working in different global geographies to explore the range of ways in which curatorial labour is rendered as care.
The presentation will be held in English and will explore the possibilities and pitfalls of curating as a caring practice in conversation with the participants.
The event will also highlight the multi-year participatory interdisciplinary research of the international platform n*a*i*l*s hacks*facts*fictions, in particular its Ljubljana outpost, Corneous Stories (26. City of Women Festival, 2020), which, on the initiative of Katja Kobolt, brought together curators, artists, theoreticians and students in a collaborative exploration of history through the vision of cosmetics and beauty work, and revealed the connections between labour regimes, genders, social classes, migrations, different identities and their aesthetic encodings through the production of artworks, an exhibition with a discursive and educational programme and an edited volume of texts.
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Elke Krasny, PhD, Professor for Art and Education and Head of the Department of Education in the Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Krasny’s scholarship, academic writings, curatorial work, and international lectures address questions of care at the present historical conjuncture with a focus on emancipatory and transformative practices in art, curating, architecture and urbanism. The 2019 exhibition and edited volume Critical Care. Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet, curated and edited together with Angelika Fitz, was published by MIT Press and introduces a care perspective in architecture addressing the anthropocenic conditions of the global present. Krasny co-edited Curating as Feminist Organizing (Routledge, 2023) with Lara Perry.
Petja Grafenauer, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Department of Theory, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana. Her specialty is local and regional art after World War II II, with a focus on painting and contemporary art. Since 2012, she has also been researching the intersections between business and art. She is currently working on two research projects, Models and Practices of International Cultural Exchange of the Non-Aligned Movement: Exploring Spatio-Temporal Cultural Dynamics and Protests, Artistic Practices, and the Culture of Memory in the Post-Yugoslav Context. He regularly publishes his findings in academic, professional, and popular media, most recently in Third Text. She has written or edited several books on visual art, including a study of pop art in Slovenia entitled Non-Aligned Pop (2017), a book of texts by Zdenka Badovinac entitled An Authentic Interest (2010), and a monograph on the painter Aleksij Kobal (2008).
Brigita Miloš, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Rijeka. She is working in the field of gender studies and literature, body studies and feminist theory. She is the coordinator of the Centre for Women’s Studies in Rijeka.
Katja Kobolt, PhD, works as a researcher, curator and art educator on gender, art and literature, pursuing issues of broader cultural relevance. Kobolt has worked with various institutions and feminist and post-migrant groups (e.g. the trans-Yugoslav curatorial collective Red Mined, n*a*i*l*s hacks*facts*fictions platform) and institutions (e.g. City of Women, 54. October Salon Belgrade, District Berlin, Lothringer 13 Munich) and has initiated research, publication, artistic and cultural projects. She has lectured at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin University of the Arts, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and the School of Arts at the University of Nova Gorica. She is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Institute for Culture and Memory Studies of the ZRC SAZU Ljubljana.
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The event is co-organised by: ALUO, Škuc Gallery, Goethe-Institut Ljubljana, City of Women, ZRC SAZU
Photos: Nada Žgank
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The Škuc Gallery programme is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana.
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