Are younger curators today losing an appreciation for the concept of “curatorial authority”? What else are we losing as a result? Or, equally important, what are we gaining?

On Thursday, January 27, a cross-section of Philadelphia's curatorial community gathered at the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage to hear eight local colleagues speak about their work. The presenters were participants in the Philadelphia Curatorial Intensive.

For those of us in the audience, the panel raised a number of interesting issues. One that came up time and time again, albeit obliquely, is the notion of "curatorial authority." Several of the curators expressed their discomfort with . . .

Image: Former Documenta Curators Okwui Enwezor and Catherine David at a 2009 conference at the Castello di Rivoli in Turin, Italy.
 

The College of Physicians of Philadelphia announced that in autumn 2011 it will host the world premiere of a film by the Quay Brothers shot throughout the College and involving the Mütter Museum and the Historical Medical Library.

The College received a generous grant last spring from the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, a program of The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, to produce a film by the renowned and critically acclaimed Quay Brothers, to debut at three symposia, accompanied by an exhibit on the making of the film. This is a rare occasion to engage the Quays’ extraordinary cinematic vision to focus on the collections of the Mütter Museum, Historical Medical Library, and the century-old College Beaux Arts building itself. The film, symposia, and exhibit will be landmark achievements for the College in opening a dialog with the Philadelphia arts community by demonstrating how a scientific medical collection can be used to achieve a highly personal and esthetic artistic vision.

To learn more about this project, visit the College of Physicians of Philadelphia Web site > 

Lee Lozano, one of the women in pop art featured in the exhibition/documentary Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists 1958–1968, is highlighted in an article in the New York Times' Art & Design section. To read more about Ms. Lozano, check out the New York Times article here.

Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists 1958–1968, organized by Sid Sachs of the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery at The University of the Arts, a 2007 Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative grantee, opened on October 15, 2010 at the Brooklyn Museum.

Description of the exhibition from the Brooklyn Museum’s Web site:

“This large-scale exhibition examines the impact of women artists on the traditionally male-dominated field of Pop art. It reconsiders the narrow definition of the Pop art movement and reevaluates its critical reception. In recovering important female artists, the show expands the canon to reflect more accurately the women working internationally during this period. The exhibition features more than [50] artworks by Chryssa, Niki de Saint Phalle, Rosalyn Drexler, Marisol, Yayoi Kusama, Jann Haworth, Vija Celmins, Lee Lozano, Marjorie Strider, Idelle Weber, and Joyce Wieland, among others.”

The exhibition ended Sunday, January 9, 2011.

The Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative hopes you will join us for these events. Details will be available soon.

Jens Hoffmann will be here courtesy of Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative and Dance Advance.