Curatorial Practice, 13th Dec 2013 at ZHdK, Zurich
Who Cares? Urban Curators at Work
| Lecture by Elke Krasny
| Curatorial Practice
| Friday 13th of Dec. 7 pm
| ZHdK Ausstellungsstrasse 30 Room 504
Contemporary urban life is marked by the imperatives of going public and becoming contemporary. Agency and urgency are inextricably intertwined. That which does not become public, is rendered inexistent. That which is not manifested in public, has barely any claim to agency. Those who do not exert their rights to the public, cease do participate in its contemporary production.
Public space – and public time – have been turned into the new urban frontier. Urban curators leave the traditional confines of museums, galleries, and art spaces behind. They make themselves part of the ambivalences, conflicts and contradictions inherently at work in the conditions of contemporary processes of urbanization. These are marked by neoliberalism, accelerated gentrification, prevailing crisis, austerity measures and inequality. They are equally marked by bottom-up strategies, diasporic belongings, migrating knowledges, right to the city movements, self-organization, and the struggles for social and spatial justice. In this lecture I will present an outline of a real-imagined historiography of urban curating and share some examples of my own research-based curatorial work in Vienna, Hong Kong, and Vancouver.
