The choice of the Indonesian artist group ruangrupa as the management of the documenta 15 has surprised many, even Stefan Kraus. In a DW Interview, the chief of the Cologne Kolumba Museum, says, what matters to the Curate.
Deutsche Welle: Dr. Kraus, the lead artist group ruangrupa from Indonesia should the next documenta. Has surprised the decision of the selection Committee?
Stefan Kraus:. I must honestly say that I know this group of artists. But alone, that you entrusted a group and not a single curator, is quite remarkable. Let’s see how it goes.
There is no longer a curator of the world art show, but a collective determines. The changed our view of art? What do you think?
I’m used to it, that you curated in the collective and think that is the more meaningful way than this one-dimensional Thinking. In the Theater, you would be directed by the theatre to say:. I find it exciting if you do it with different people, to find criteria to define quality. That you choose but in fact an artist, to make something with artists that I find interesting.
The artist group ruangrupa from Jakarta
What is the change?
I don’t know if the need to change something, because what the curator actually does? His goal is to give the art a perfect performance, in order to give the what create artists, a context that lets you. It is simply not the case that the curator of Nice’s making what and then is the art of looking for that imaged the Whole thing.
Criticize Yes, many of the curator, that he was taking advantage of his Power, in order to convey an idea that he was the actual artist. What it is there to this criticism?
The fact that the curator has been pushed in the last few years, in the foreground, we are Art dealers maybe a little bit of self-blame. The good curator should be invisible when he puts the Material in the foreground that we deal with it. But in the end, one has to take the rap for the thing to communicate to people. Thus, the curators at the centre of media attention – and less of the artists are then often.
There is a power differential between the curator and the artists he exhibits?
This must not be. This must be a Work on par with the artist and curator to learn from each other.
For many, the curator is a dream job. Many universities form, in the meantime, curators. At the same time, these graduates will not be needed then, because the artists do their Job – see documenta. How has this development come?
The diocesan Museum Kolumba in Cologne, Germany by architect Peter Zumthor
Maybe it’s an inflationary use of the term “curate”. Each Breakfast table is curated by””. If you decide in the morning in front of the mirror, what shirt you wear today, then this is a curatorial decision that you make for yourself. I think the term is very overused. And you should pay attention maybe a little bit more to it, in which contexts it is used.
You are a curator of a Breakfast table, but the Kolumba in Cologne, and at the top of a curatorial team that goes in a new direction in art education. For this you will have to get a recent price. What do you do differently?
What can we do differently? Take the example of our opening Hours, from 12 to 17 PM. All guided tours will take place before 12 o’clock, i.e. in an empty house with the people with whom you want to talk art. This is just a Detail. Art education consists above all in the fact that in the group of the time, the other to listen to each other eye-to-eye to worry about what you see. Then the often-Seen can also be the curator of a new interest and with new content to be filled.
Kolumba: relics, crosses in front of the backdrop of the Cologne Cathedral
And all of you to trust ruangrupa in Kassel?
Well, a small Caveat I have in terms of attention to such exhibitions. I think it is an incredible task before this group of artists. And I’m quite happy that I can stay there on a much smaller scale.
The conversation with Stefan Kraus, Stefan Dege.