Ontario College of Art & Design University

CRCP6B06 Introduction to Criticism & Curatorial Studies

December 6th, 2010
Zachary Pearl

The Egg in Purgatory: Reconsidering Curating as a Transdisciplinary Practice

Curatorial practice is constantly shifting. It is the Egg1; a fluid vat of contents and components that
glide over one another, rearrange, and redistribute to suit the aims of its subject and its context. Since
the inception of curating as a recognized occupation, there has been no singular, comprehensive
definition that the community of its own practitioners has been able to agree upon. It is an elastic term
that, as soon as someone has seemed to ground it in a cogent framework, slingshots back into the
tumult of perpetually evolving visual culture and societal needs. What does it tell Society when we
cannot name something that performs a necessary function? One would be taxed to find a cultural or
educational institution that could provide an argument against the necessity of curatorial work. At the
same time, one would be taxed to find an institution that could neatly categorize it. In the course of its
practice, curating defies segmentation, and its attributes and skill sets seem constantly to trespass the
realms of other disciplines. Is there a methodology to be revealed in its shapeshifting behavior? Is
there an approach to curating that can position it in a convincing, solidified manner? Or, is it
condemned to a categorical purgatory, forever destined to be in between disciplines?

Before addressing these questions, it is best to examine the contemporary backdrop of curating; a world
that is in constant communication and is highly concerned with the transit of information. It is a
rhizomic paradigm that we are living in, a zeitgeist of connectivity that is unparalleled in human history.
The combination of the Internet, satellite technology and the free enterprise of capitalism have
produced an almost instantly accessible stratosphere of information exchange that is malleable and
eternally referential: the network. Reflecting, in certain regards, the biology of our own thinking
processes, the infinitesimal correlations between subject matters and disciplines in the network have
created a society in which communication embodies the strange bedfellows of chaos and rich
potentiality. The chaos of the network is the dissolution of a clear hierarchy of who is disseminating
the information—an apparent anarchy. There is great potential in this anarchy for comprehensive
problem solving, if the lateral nature of movement within it is harnessed and consciously maneuvered.

As users of the network, we are well adjusted to its 'nodality' in our day-to-day interactions with it.
Through the Internet, through our smart phones, through our GPS tracking devices, we have become
adept at navigating a boundless set of parameters. But we have contained this mode of thinking and
communicating to the context of the network (an extreme phenomenon of irony). When it comes to
integrating this nodal manner of exchanging information and creating content within our own

                                                                                                               
1  I am referring to Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the Body without Organs (BwO)–“How Do You Make Yourself A
Body Without Organs?” A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism & Schizorphrenia. 1987. However, I am not referencing it in the
sense that they originally conceived of it; as a model for an actualized mode of being. Instead, I am using its interchangeable
anatomy as a metaphor for the phenomenon of curatorial practice that seems to defy a finite list of duties or responsibilities.
Subsequently, the roles of the curator move freely and rearrange themselves to fit the context of the project at hand—a
BwO of a discipline.  
professions there are ideological barriers to overcome. What is it that holds society back from attaining
this actualized lateral movement? The long answer, of course, involves many factors that are
inextricably woven together. However, in terms of a recent human history (or at least that which
concerns the Occident), the short answer, and perhaps that thread that runs intrinsically through all
contributing factors, is the Modernist ideology.

The effects of Modernism and its homogenizing microscope may have dissipated in culture to the level
of the naked eye. However, its anthems of universality and its regards to the One, the Hero, the
Genius; the modus operandi of the 'path', have been maintained, for the most part, through the
practices of universities, cultural institutions and major corporations in the Western world. This
standardization of a trajectory within a given field of profession or an area of specialty is not necessarily
detrimental to our society as a larger mechanism. Yet, it is counter-productive in respect to a post-
industrial, post-modern culture that seeks to eliminate 'right' or 'wrong' answers (the residue of the
Grand Narratives) and move toward a pluralistic system of 'input' and 'output'.

Nevertheless, there are rends in the fabric of the 'disciplinary' that foreshadow a larger rift in the
practices of society as a whole. The rise of interdisciplinarity as a pedagogic methodology, most
recently and vividly seen in the curricula of universities across North America and Europe, is the telling
sign that the focus has gone from identifying 'rights' and 'wrongs' to examining their peripheries. It is
not so much that disciplines are becoming less specific in themselves, so much as society's philosophy
of knowledge is becoming less specified and encouraged to move between multiple areas of interest at
once. This phenomenon is the rift; the opening of a plane of traditional careerism to give rise to new
tropes of the Professional. For instance, it is increasingly common for an individual in the workforce
to shift from profession to profession, knowledge-base to knowledge-base within a lifetime, or to hold
multiple jobs in multiple areas of interest, and do so for prolonged periods. What does this reflect? A
precarious state of economics that cannot secure job positions or adequate wages, for certain. But,
what does this phenomenon say about our level of need as a society? For, the larger the society and the
more advanced its technologies, the scope of its concerns and inquiries broadens exponentially.

Contemporary issues, in culturally interpretive fields specifically, are requiring a broader skill set and
knowledge base in order to arrive at sustainable outcomes. In curatorial practice, it is becoming more
and more difficult to describe what a curator does, even on the personal level. In the introductory
chapter of Rethinking Curating: Art After New Media, Beryl Graham and Sarah Cook present the
argument that contemporary curators, particularly those curating new media, find it necessary to merge
many roles and disciplines in order to make their exhibitions and projects come to fruition. They are
confronted head-on with an ongoing struggle to define oneself in relation to a number of things: the
institution, the artist, the public, the canon, etc. This, "fundamental polyschizophrenia", (147) is also
exacerbated by the fact that art and culture are not static; they are continuously morphing and changing
in reaction to technological discoveries and to one another. Because of this, Graham and Cook posit
that we must stop searching for a universal methodology of curating and re-envision the process as a
cache of possible exhibition models and curatorial modes. But how far into this cache can one reach?
What is the spectrum of its knowledge, and how often does it extend beyond the conventions of
'curator' into other disciplines?

At this point, it is important to remember that curatorial work is still relatively young; akin to a toddler
amongst other more established areas such as engineering or law. After all, the Great Exhibition of
1851 inaugurated the format in which we commonly think of exhibitions today, but the rise of curating
as a profession did not really take hold until the early twentieth century. (McClellan, 2008: 71)
In respects to its juvenile history, curatorial practice has come a long way since its associative value with

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that of a custodian. But those who seek to advance its status as a discipline and apply experimental
models for its deployment are still rarely supported in their efforts on an institutional level. This is
despite the rapidly changing display needs and means of production of the art, for which it exists in the
first place. Certainly, in the rhizomic context I have outlined, an effective and actualized curatorial
practice demands a reconsideration of its role by the institutions that create and maintain such
positions, and the qualifications of its practitioners by the institutions that educate them. This is not an
issue of changing the tenets of curatorial practice, but expanding and restructuring them to include a
wider array of techniques and skill sets. Remarkable curators of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
have often been outsiders or transgressors of the 'proper' curatorial path, moving outside an education
in art history (or avoiding it all together), and moving within and against institutions and their norms.

What is it that makes these curators successful? What characteristic quality do their movements outside
the ‘accepted’ curatorial vein generate? Although they lack a common background, these curators have
pursued multiple disciplines simultaneously and have ignored a route of specialism in any period or
region of art. Each of them demonstrates an approach to their practices that has allowed them to
move fluidly between project roles because they are moving fluidly across disciplines. They are
exercising a transdisciplinary approach.

Before going any further, let us consider the etymology of 'discipline' in a visual manner. The historical
definition of a discipline, as it refers to a trained skill set or profession, is as a branch of knowledge.
(Oxford, 1989) If we picture this branch, it extends from a larger limb, and this limb extends from a
trunk, or a taproot; a kind of indivisible, monolithic knowledge. The movement of the branch as it
grows and develops is always outward, moving farther away from its origin, and in doing so it develops
its own structure and nuances. Although this definition of a discipline is aesthetically pleasing to
envision, it represents a secular philosophy of thought. Why must the discipline move eternally
outward? Can the discipline not weave, invert, and knot around and through its neighboring
disciplines? Surely, it borrows from other branches unknowingly. Surely, it assists in the growth and
the shaping of other branches through its own maturation. Again, we can return to the concept of the
rhizome, and use it to redefine what now appears to be a vestigial metaphor for an interrelated
framework of knowledge. The rhizome, in its omnidirectional weaving, its inextricable nature, is then
the icon of transdisciplinarity.

A methodology conceptualized in great length and detail by the Romanian physicist Basarab Nicolescu
in his 2001 manifesto on the subject, "transdisciplinarity", it its most general terms, "concerns that
which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all discipline,”
(Nicolescu, 2001: 44) It is a methodology that lives only in the contemporary. It does not reference
past models to inform its practices, and it arrives at knowledge through doing; a methodology that
develops through experimentation, with a foundational knowledge of related disciplines. The ultimate
aim of Nicolescu's methodology is to marry what he terms a, "unity of knowledge" (44) with the unity
of our being Through this unity, society can potentially overcome "the problem of fragmentation that
plagues contemporary life." (Voss, 2010) This problem of fragmentation is the result of postmodern
ideologies that have bestowed us with mixed messages. These messages have called for a conscious
questioning of voice and authority in cultural production that makes for a more even distribution of
power. But, in doing so, they have constructed a society that identifies itself through differences; a
continued adherence to the binary logic that Jacques Derrida has worked so diligently to highlight as a
fallacy of a 'rational' society. Nicolescu positions his methodology as an alternative to this logic, stating
that it attempts to encompass human knowledge and experience, rather than polarize it. "His thinking
aids in the unification of the scientific culture and the sacred..." (Voss, 2010) because it posits that they
are isomorphic.

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Although Nicolescu is borrowing the term 'isomorphism' from a chemistry lexicon, the term,
informally, refers to a kind of mapping between objects that shows a relationship between two
properties or operations. If the principles of this relationship are nearly interchangeable, we call the
structures isomorphic. In a sense, isomorphic structures are identical, if you choose to ignore finer-
grained differences that may arise from how they are defined. Therefore, isomorphic disciplines are the
points at which one realizes that multiple disciplines are structurally the same at an elementary level
even though the names and notation for the elements are different.

If we begin an isomorphic analysis of curatorial practice, there are many disciplines in the liberal arts
and humanities that can be easily paralleled. For the purpose of this essay, there are five disciplines that
I will identify as being isomorphic with curatorial practice, although, it should be noted that many
others exist and should be explored in depth at a later date. The five that I will assert at this time are:
anthropology, art, design, writing, and education. Although these disciplines possess slightly different
terminologies and formats for their applications, they are disciplines that are commonly combined and
cross-referenced in order to produce a singular creative solution. All of these disciplines also share with
curating an ambiguous relationship to methodologies that must be contextually applied to the
appropriate subject/scenario in order to yield an efficacious exhibition or event.

In an effort to discern a transdisciplinary methodology among them, I posit that there are four major
isomorphic coordinates between them that can be used to establish a conscious navigation: the role of
cultural interpreter, the quality of the performative, the institution as a medium, and the practice of
ethnography. I have outlined these isomorphisms in a chart. (Figure 1) It should be noted that this
chart is simplified, and does not provide a visual representation of the flux inherent in the
isomorphisms. For example, although I have labeled the culturally interpretive role of the
anthropologist to be that of Observer, the anthropologist is frequently akin to the curator as the figure
of Editor. In a similar regard, the performative aspect of the educator, defined as the lesson or the
exercise, can easily shift into that of the publication if an educator is writing about his/her practice.
But, if the subject of the writing is meant to pass along a formula (for instance, a particular educator's
pedagogic strategy) then it is also performed simultaneously as the lesson/exercise. So, it is important
to recognize that this chart is in itself a modernist diagramming of isomorphic disciplines, and that, in
reality, these attributes always operate in a flow or a continuous movement across the disciplines that
cannot be so neatly ordered.
To illustrate this concept, I will provide a brief survey of four curators who have or currently are
exercising a transdisciplinary methodology in their practice. It is important to offer the disclaimer, that
none of these curators have deemed themselves or their methodologies as namely transdisciplinary.
The purpose of my survey is to analyze their practices through the lens of transdisciplinarity, and to
propose that their careers provide inspiring prototypes for innovative curatorial models.

Richard Hamilton (born 1922)

Curator/Artist/Designer/Educator
Richard Hamilton was born in London, England in 1922, and presupposing his contributions as a
prolific curator and exhibition designer, he is considered the first of the major British artists involved in

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the Pop Art movement. Despite his lack of a 'complete' formal education in art,2 he quickly became a
staple exhibitor at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London (ICA), and designed many posters and
other print material for the Centre School of Art and Design. (Hamilton, 1982) While involved as an
exhibiting artist at ICA, he also established a relationship with the Institute's curator Roland Penrose,
with whom he collaborated on the design of many influential exhibitions centered on the New Brutalist
and British Pop Art movements, including 1953's The Wonder and Horror of the Human Head, featuring the
work of Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull. (Lichtenstein & Schregenberger, 2001: 13)

Via Penrose, Hamilton was also introduced to the work of Marcel Duchamp, specifically, The Green Box;
a published series of green felt-covered boxes," that contained, "ninety-four loose notes relating to the
development and function of his magnum opus The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors Even, known
familiarly as The Large Glass. (Thirkell, 2005) In the years following, Hamilton would take advantage of
his position at the Center to develop a close relationship with Duchamp, and his admiration of his work
and process bordered on obsession (Hamilton, 1982). So taken with Duchamp's sketches and notes
leading up to The Large Glass, Hamilton would eventually design a typographic version of The Green Box
that would go farther than previous translations of Duchamp's notes in an attempt to convey their
nuances, their subtleties and their aspects which were beyond translation that Hamilton believed related
directly to physical features in the objects used to assemble The Large Glass. This involved standardizing
a series of highlighting symbols, varying fonts and, most importantly, developing a suitable sequence to
fit the format of a conventional book. (Thirkell, 2005) Working in collaboration with George Heard
Hamilton, one of the first translators of The Green Box, who worked strictly to translate Duchamp's
French chicken-scratch into a semi-coherent English, they published a finalized version entitled, The
Green Book, in 1960. Richard Hamilton's commitment to developing a an intermediary language in
order to reveal a greater meaning or structure in Duchamp's process showed his tenacious natural
ability to curate a work without forcing it into an established set of conventions. In a 1999 lecture on
the production of The Green Book, Hamilton explained,

that there was a definite advantage in not understanding French in that he was not
tempted to accept something that sounded vague or nonsensical just because it was a
direct or literal translation. Therefore, a great deal of time was spent in puzzling over
what Duchamp may have been getting at in the notes and refining the English
translation to best capture the underlying concept. (Thirkell, 2005)

Hamilton's connection to Penrose also afforded him to become acquainted with Victor Pasmore who
gave him a teaching post in the Faculty of Fine Art at Newcastle-Upon-Tyne until 1966. Hamilton's
experience as an educator at Newcastle lent him several perspectives on the display and politics of art,
which he recorded in his 1982 memoir-of-sorts, Collected Words. Although the essays and candid
accounts of Collected Words focus on specific phases of Hamilton's artistic practice and time as a
professor, it is evident how his versatility throughout the art world gave him curatorial insights, that
otherwise might be lost on a person who forged a more direct path into an embedded curating position.
For example, Hamilton's involvement with the school's curriculum, particularly in his time teaching
foundation courses, shows him working to break down stereotypes of the artist persona for the newly
inducted art student, and using the meeting ground of the classroom to illustrate his belief that artists
are, at their roots, problem-solvers. He strove to erase common preconceptions of the Genius in
artistic practice and stated of his pedagogic philosophy: " What [one does] is to introduce problems
which can be solved intellectually; the graphic quality is not so important." (Hamilton, 1982: 179)
                                                                                                               
2  Hamilton was expelled from the Royal Academy for allegedly, ‘not profiting from its instruction’. He later attended the
Slade School of Art at University College in London for two years, but did not complete a degree.  

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Hamilton also seemed to derive from his teaching experiences, a love of works-in-process. In his
reflections, Hamilton elucidates how viewing the process of making art as a series of works unto itself
is, perhaps, the only way to see the artist for his/herself rather than as a semblance of artworks:

The student is prompted always to think of his work first as diagrams of thought
processes—equipment which will enable him to derive further conclusions. On the
other hand, it is also necessary to avoid the implication that the work is valueless once
the analysis is made. The tool does not become redundant, so it is essential to engender
in the student a respect for the sometimes unprepossessing aid—his diagram. ...
Individually the products tend to be depersonalized—as a portfolio they express a clear
personality. (Hamilton, 1982: 178)

By teaching art at a university level, Hamilton was also privy to the level of intellectual exercise that was
present in the curriculum of his day. His push towards an education of art as problem solving rather
than inductive methods offered Hamilton insight into the conceptual trajectory of art; what new
mediums and techniques might emerge from forthcoming graduates. Armed with...two prime
pedagogic weapons, a demand for solutions to specific problems and training in the presentation of
solutions,” (Hamilton, 1982: 177) Hamilton carved out a metaphor for the virtue of the exhibition in
his endeavors as an educator, and curator of the arts to encourage more than the display of objects, but
an extension of critical thinking in a visual way.

The work and life of Richard Hamilton can be seen as testament to the isomorphism in curating and
the related fields I have outlined of the institution as a medium. No matter whether Hamilton’s work
concerned the arena of the gallery, the studio, the university or laws of language (in the case of The
Green Book), his methods involved considering the function and the limitations of the institution as an
integral component and ‘dialect’ of his process. This, combined with his experience as a designer, gave
him skills of organization and communication that allowed him to move fluidly through his various
governing structures, escaping being niched into any one mode of expression or a becoming an icon of
bureaucratic opposition. Most of all, Hamilton’s success is owed to his unmatchable passion to see art
as a means of research, and a powerful device for change; a perspective that was undoubtedly arrived at
by means of multiple, simultaneous interests and the revelation of their interrelated prospects.

Harald Szeemann (1933-2005)

Curator/Artist/Actor/Writer
Another major proponent of the exhibition as a creative act was the contentious Harald Szeemann.
“So strongly did [Szeemann] extol the exhibition as a medium of expression rather than a merely
mediatory activity that some accused him of turning it into a work of art." (Capelle, 2008) From
juxtaposing artworks with his personal collection of ephemera to curating shows of art by the mentally
ill, Szeemann seemed to see no exhibition as a landmark in a teleological investigation of visual culture.
Each show was its own creature with a rich narrative that may or may not have been prioritized as an
interpretable aspect of the end result. Between 1957 and 2005, Szeemann organized an impressive
amount of exhibitions, and explored a variety of formats, tending towards the experimental. He often
worked closely with artists, blurring the line between curator and creator, which he eventually coined as
a personal method: the auteur/curator model. Although heralded by some as radical practitioner and
occasionally genius, his constant push to explore new modes of artistic display and to perform
institutional critique through his exhibitions gained him a nasty reputation amongst conservative
contemporaries.

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Despite his exhibition's mixed reviews, he was appointed director of the Kunsthalle, Bern, in 1961,
where he 'staged' many shows that ran the gamut of exhibition subjects, ranging from classic
monographic showings of contemporary artists to more 'questionable' displays such as science fiction
toys and paraphernalia. (Capelle, 2008) His activity there culminated with the groundbreaking and
controversial When Attitudes Become Form in 1969, in which Michael Heizer methodically destroyed the
pavement outside the museum; while Richard Serra created his piece live by heaving hot lead against
the gallery wall. The exhibition eventually resulted in Szeemann’s resignation. “The new model had no
less an impact on the public role of the curator, who was now not only an accomplice but also a key
protagonist—the enterprising figure responsible for the exhibition's very staging as an event.
“(Birnbaum, 2005) Afterward, he launched into a career of independent curating going under the
name, the Agency for Intellectual Guest Labour. During this period, Szeemann was appointed general
secretary of Documenta 5, and for many of his contracted projects, returned to his roots as a one-man-
theatre (Capelle, 2008), appearing as various characters enacting guest performances at random points
during the exhibitions. In this way, it is easy to see how Szeemann’s work utilizes the isomorphism of
the performative between his disciplines. No matter the nature of the project, Szeemann saw it as a
platform, or a kind of stage, from which to perform the antithesis of the societal prescription for that
activity; to perform critique. This behavior, of course, incited derision from curatorial purists, who
viewed his theatrics as insensitivity to, or usurpation of the artworks' presence. Daniel Buren persists in
being credited with having made the most jabbing critique of Szeemann's work, stating in his review of
Documenta 5, Where Are The Artists?:

The organizer assumes the contradictions; it is he who safeguards them. It is true, then,
that the exhibition establishes itself as its own subject, and its own subject as a work of
art. The exhibition is the “valorizing receptacle” in which art is played out and founders,
because even if the artwork was formerly revealed thanks to the museum, it now serves
as nothing more than a decorative gimmick for the survival of the museum as tableau, a
tableau whose author is none other than the exhibition organizer. (Buren, 1972)

However, Szeeman's moxie and his commitment to working with artists as creative partners rather than
suppliers of interesting objects made him very appealing to an art community that wanted to turn the
rigidity of Modernism on its head. (Serra & Obrist, 2005)

Szeemann was interested in the idea of value as it pertained to the museum/gallery environment and
how that value was constructed. He wanted to insert his personal values through a regulated and
established system; to work at the deconstruction of the museum's canonical foundations from the
inside out. James Clifford, in On Collecting Art & Culture, discusses this very process; suggesting that
by mixing or juxtaposing various collections, "one can transgress ('poach' in their tabooed zones) or
make their self-evident orders seem strange." (1999: 52) This tactic would have been difficult for
Szeemann to apply, as he was primarily concerned with contemporary artists, rarely working with
collections. However, in his contracted work as an independent curator, he poached the themes that
were assigned to him by including project documentation, mass media, and objects of kitsch and
outright banality.

"Next to works of art, object categories that found their way into Szeemann’s thematic
shows included puppets, robots, machines, magazine covers, banknotes, propaganda,
advertising, comics, personal memorabilia—a real ‘Wunderkammer’ which triggered
free association and flash-like insights, making his exhibitions journeys through one’s
own head as much as physical walks through space." (Birnbaum, 2005)

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"Accused by some of reverting to art for art’s sake, he countered with the primacy of the non-collective
utopias he termed individual mythologies and his view of art as a sum of narrations in the first person
singular: a reflection of his fascination both with those at the margins and resisting socialisation."
(Capelle, 2008) Although Szeemann's practices are highly debatable due to his almost willful opposition
to any kind of curatorial objectivity, his transdisiciplinary movement across creative domains allowed
him to be comfortable in his unabashed authorship. Even though Szeemann's work could hardly be
considered responsible in terms of fair representation, his fervor and firm belief that his artistic medium
was the exhibition gave him credence to the artists that he worked with and the public that loved to be
abhorred by his creations. The benefits of working in a transdisciplinary manner are bound to be
unpopular with established systems of the disciplines that are being traversed. As the plethora of 20th
century of art movements have made clear, the ideals of the avant-garde are synonymous with critical
opposition and denial. And, Szeemann’s approach was indeed that of an avant-garde prerogative. He
was not concerned with the relatives of success in his field so much as he was hell-bent to utilize his
knowledge of art and culture to the fullest potential. This priority of the wholeness of knowledge and
the goal to tap into the multitude of one’s resources simultaneously is indeed a tenet of
transdisciplinarity.

John Massier (born 1963)

Curator/Designer/Writer
John Massier is the Visual Arts Curator for Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center. He earned his BA in
English from the University of Toronto in 1984 and pursued no formal art history or visual art
education thereafter. However, his education in literature provided insight to critical issues in
contemporary art. He states that, “the history of modernism/postmodernism is pretty much the same
regardless of media. The century-long amplification of the sense of self and one's interior world is as
prevalent in literature as in art,” (Massier, 2010) After graduating, he worked in various businesses
throughout the non-profit sector as a production designer and developed a keen eye for the visually
dynamic (2010). His natural propensity to write about the arts has also helped to carve out an entrance,
or a, “side door,” through which to sneak into the curatorial field. Massier also cites his contributions
to exhibition catalogues and art journals as a vital inlet to the larger arena of the contemporary art
world. His published articles and essays, now numbering close to 200 in total (2010), has also aided his
curatorial practice by helping to forge partnerships with fellow curators and establish long-term,
meaningful rapports with artists.

A curator that more or less ‘fell’ into his line of work, Massier has utilized a large range of skills across
the creative disciplines to cull his career, and exemplifies a non-traditional paving into a curatorial
position. Hallwalls has gained national and international attention over the last six years that Massier
has been its visual curator and programmer, most notably through the Center’s involvement in the
organization and execution of Beyond/In: an annual regional exhibition across 12 gallery spaces that
surveys recent work from Upstate New York, Central New York, Southern Ontario, Northeastern
Ohio, and Northwestern Pennsylvania. During the ideation phase, Massier worked with prominent
consultants from the art world, including Bruce Ferguson to arrive at an efficacious formula. Since
Beyond/In’s debut in 2006, its attendance has grown from 20,000 to over 75,000 visitors, and its
organizers are currently discussing transforming the effort into a biennial. (Adams, 2010)

Despite his prolific contributions to the contemporary arts, Massier does not consider himself a
creative individual. Rather, he states that he is a person who recognizes creative potential and
interesting individuals. (Massier, 2010) However, his process for installing an exhibition suggests
otherwise. Massier has described a successful exhibition design as one that is responsive to the

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movement of the body in space much like the navigation of the reader through a text. “The words are
the sentiments of the art, and sometimes they need to be grouped together in order to ‘speak’. Clusters
of art objects form paragraphs that make them easier to understand.”(2010) In this way, Massier
traverses his knowledge and experience as a designer and a writer to integrate the concepts of gestalt,
legibility, and linguistic structure into a curatorial model. It is a transdisciplinary mentality that implies a
process of mapping one’s personal knowledge bank in order to arrive at a unilateral, comprehensive
strategy.

When asked if he views his practice as a form of ethnography, Massier was adamant that he does not
think of curating in an anthropological or sociological sense. Nevertheless, Massier has described his
personal approach to curating as a “meandering”, like a detective looking for clues in the, “murky
dark,” of the artist’s work (Massier, 2010). This type of careful looking can easily be thought of in an
ethnographic light, as the inspection of an artist’s body of work is similar to the observation of a
cultural practice from the perspective of an outsider. And, working in the reverse, the anthropologist
or the sociologist ‘curates’ these observations when s/he writes them down and formulates them into a
coherent message that is meant to inform others. This liberalism of terminology may be too poetic for
those who wish to maintain an officialdom of disciplines. “It is increasingly clear, however that the
concrete activity of representing a culture, subculture, or indeed any coherent domain of collective
activity is always strategic and selective." (Clifford, 1999: 61) Representing an artist in a curatorial sense
involves the same amount of careful inspection and reflection as a larger schema of habits and values.
To further illustrate the isomorphic quality of ethnography in Massier’s practice, his experience as a
designer has primed him to integrate notions of audience and universal communication. Designers
often practice ethnographic research to evaluate to whom they are potentially ‘speaking’, and what will
be the most effective visual statement to resonate with that demographic. (Plowman, 2003) Given that
part of Hallwall’s mandate is to present work, “which is critically engaged with current issues in the arts
and--through the arts--in society”, (Duchette, 2010) it is no surprise that Massier makes a conscious
effort to write and curate outside his own institution. Through this, Massier is able to familiarize and
position himself in topical discussions about art on a larger scale.

Gerald McMaster (born 1953)

Curator/Artist/Writer
Gerald McMaster grew up on the Red Pheasant First Nation reserve in Saskatchewan, Canada. He cites
his experiences of listening to the “Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy,” on the radio and being an
avid reader of comic books as major influences on his art, which frequently satire stereotypes of
indigenous peoples in popular culture (Siksika Nation Profiles). McMaster studied fine art at the
Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico and earned his BFA from the Minneapolis
College of Art and Design in 1977. In 1994, he earned an MA in Anthropology from Carleton
University in Ottawa, Ontario and went on to complete a doctorate degree at the University of
Amsterdam in the School of Cultural Analysis. In 1979, at the First Nations University in Regina,
Saskatchewan he developed the first Bachelor of Art (Native Art) program. He also created the first
national Indian and Inuit art gallery at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa where he was
curator from 1981 to 2000. McMaster is currently the Curator of Canadian Art at the Art Gallery of
Ontario, and has recently been appointed Joint Artistic Director along Catherine de Zegher for the
2012 Biennale of Sydney.

Although he received his master’s education in anthropology, McMaster does not consider himself to
be an anthropologist, and derides being referenced as such. It is interesting, however, that McMaster

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views curating as an inevitable form of ethnography, because art is often more about culture in general
than the issues of visual culture. (McMaster, 2010) He also sees the intentions of curating as parallel to
ethnography in that it attempts to discern the larger cultural value or narrative from artworks despite
never being able to truly know the reasoning behind their creation. This willful immersion into a
territory that one is not meant to understand signifies, for McMaster, a self-perpetuated role of the
curator as outsider. This is similar to the ethnographer that devotes years of his/her life to existing
within a foreign culture only to analyze the experience, sustaining an empirical distance. (2010)

However, McMaster is quick to state that he views ethnography as a whole, as an outdated modernist
practice that can only result in isolation and decontextualization of its subject. Instead, he illustrates the
isomorphic role of the cultural interpreter by stating that he believes applying his knowledge of
anthropology to visual art and curating provides an alternative model. (McMaster, 2010). In the
discussion of the relationships between visual art and anthropology, “there is considerable unplumbed
potential in artistic practice that might be experimentally developed in anthropology. In particular, art
offers techniques for moving beyond the overwhelming textual focus of anthropology’s 1980
representational concerns,” (MacDonald & Basu, 2007: 7) by subduing the author and prizing the
pluralism of multiple voices. Furthermore, curators have the opportunity to expose the public to other
cultures without the direct narration and didacticism that can arise from an anthropological text.3

In relation to how his practice as a visual artist has informed his curatorial work, McMaster believes it
has shown him the importance of having a studio or a ‘lab’. Surrounding himself with the materiality of
articles, books, and inspiring visuals, he has sought to create a space for reflection and a forum for
ideation with colleagues. The concept of the studio in both visual art and curating presents another
possible isomorphism with anthropology through the notion of ritual. As an environment to regularly
undertake the investigation of the differences between processes of knowing and processes of making,
the studio becomes a kind of ritualistic site for personal enlightenment. (Sullivan, 2005: 78, 79)

McMaster’s experience as an artist has also given him respect for artists as intellectuals when working
with them from a curatorial standpoint. He stresses that the myth of the artist as a sort of magician or
shaman-type figure in society is still a grossly propagated misconception by the majority of society, and
it is important to realize that artists are not only generators of objects, but also of ideas and experiences.
(McMaster, 2010) Moreover, McMaster relates the intellect of the visual artist to curating in the fact
that it can sometimes be a condensation or a ‘flattening’ of a multi-faceted concept. In this way, the
goal of the curator is to facilitate the complexity of the art through variables of space—to create a
dimension for an idea to live within (2010).
…

In conclusion, it is apparent that curatorial practice demonstrates traits of a transdisciplinary

methodology, but that it has and continues to do so mostly on an unconscious level. For those that
take an alternative route into the curatorial arena, there is little time for reflection on the potentially
innovative qualities of one’s methodologies because one’s attention is consumed by trying to marry
seemingly disparate projects and avenues into something viable. Again, we encounter a kind of
purgatory that does not allow the curator to gain a conceptual foothold. The Egg, however marvelous
in its ability to reconfigure itself, is still unable to hatch or to abandon its form. It has no arms or legs
to grasp on to its surroundings, and the rigid structure of the professional world does not provide a
                                                                                                               
3  This is highly dependent on the sensitivity of the curator to issues of ‘otherness’ in the methods of display for the objects,
and a conscientious effort to avoid an authoritative voice in any text that accompanies them. My use of the word
‘opportunity’ here is made in a most optimistic and educated stance.  

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welcome environment for those who go barreling from one point to another. This is a major challenge
for the recognition of transdisciplinarity : a society that views varied methods and activities as ‘risky’, as
‘unstable’ or ‘immature’, as a way of living that is ‘hobbled’ together. If we, either as a society or as a
community of curatorial practitioners, are to take advantage of our occupation’s transdisciplinary
tendencies, what are the possible courses of action?

Firstly, it is advisable to reform the curricula of curatorial programs in education on the post-secondary
level. By increasing the scope of subject matters and required skills in the courses offered within these
programs, future generations of curators will be adept at fluidly transitioning between roles of the
writer, designer, artist, educator, etc. I am not suggesting that every candidate for a curatorial degree
take a painting class (although, this is not a bad idea). That would be a far too literal approach to the
larger issue at hand. The value of the painting class is not necessarily in the act of painting. Its value is
in the creative process and the limitations of the openness that is inherent to the blank canvas.
Therefore, it is crucial to model curatorial education in a way that mimics the challenges of related
disciplines.

For example, rather than handing a blank canvas to each curatorial student, why not administer an
assignment in which each student is given a ‘blank’ or empty space, and a week with which to do
anything of their choosing? The student may paint the space, if that is the solution they feel is most
appropriate to the space itself. However, the space may be more suited for an installation, or for a
performance, or as a meeting space for social interaction, or as a library or archive of valuable
information. The point of the exercise is to think about the space as a problem with a visual solution
and a context that informs it. This encourages experiential, transdisciplinary methods of knowledge-
acquisition while encouraging personal direction and vision.

The second reform that must be undertaken if we wish to institute a conscious transdisciplinary
practice of curating is that of a philosophical reform in regards to disciplines. As I have already stated,
the pitfall of thinking of occupations in terms of disciplines sets our society up for a segmented mode
of behavior. As long as we continue to delineate skills, actions, creations, and projects through the
terminology of the various disciplines we reify the constructed idea of their separation. If the ultimate
goal of transdisciplinarity is to develop a methodology beyond disciplines, then the terms that create
this system of division must be the first thing that we alter.

Furthermore, we must modify the way in which we conceive of an occupation or a career. To any
longer think of an occupation as a singular activity or definitive list of tasks is to contradict the nodality
of our paradigm. Can an occupation not be comprised of multiple, related skill sets and experiences?
To assist in this difficult ideological shift, it will be necessary to identify occupations that are already
made of multiple components and that function in a coherent manner despite their assembled nature.
What collage of activities can we look to as an exemplary for an unnamable but undeniably beneficial
occupation? If nothing else has been achieved by the inquiries posed in this essay, it is safe to say that
curating could serve as such an exemplary, as a prototype for an ideology that will move us beyond the
immutable condition of the professional world.

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