No joke, there has been a lot of books published on the subject of curators in the last decade. I've been reading a fair number of them and for a while, have been making a list of ones I need to get. Today I'm going to share them with you.
I don't doubt curators as much as others do. If it weren't for curators, there would only be two type of shows: solo shows in galleries and museum based historical retrospectives of dead artists. I do think that the word is being used way too much and we need to expand our vocab. Personally, I wrestle with how and what I do when I plan a show-- is it merely an illustration of an idea or is there something bigger going on, does the work or theme of the show lead, am I telling artists what to do, is it understandable to a wide audience, could I have found better artists or written about them differently, etc.
And yes, I don't shy away from books about museums.
Here we go:
Brief History of Curating
On Curating: Interviews with Ten International Curators
A Brief History of Curating New Media Art: Interviews with Curators
Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance
Rethinking Curating
What Makes a Great Exhibition
Cautionary Tales
Thinking About Exhibitions
Inside the White Cube
One Place After Another
Collecting the New
Salon to Biennial
Studio and Cube
Exhibiting Cultures
Art and Its Publics
Exhibiting Contradiction
Academies, Museums, and Cannons of Art
The Arts of Democracy
Contemporary Art and the Museum
Enchanted Lives, Enchanted Objects
Good and Plenty
Curating Consciousness
International Dialogues about Visual Culture, Education and Art
The Modern Eye
Money for Art
Museum Basics
Museums and their Communities
Museum Exhibition
Museum Legs
Museum Prejudice
New Media in the White Cube
The Place of Artists' Cinema
Spaces of Experience
Sponsorship
Museum Frictions
This is the Flow
Harald Szeemann: Exhibition Maker
Harald Szeemann--with by through because towards despite
Under Construction
Whose Muse?
Women Gallerists
Curating Now(PDF Yup, it's a free book! Goes for over 100 on amazon.)
Curating Subjects
If you know of a book that isn't on this list, let me know!
