The Curators Battle is a pretty direct title for an experimental concept event. The Grimmuseum hosted two curators, Carson Chan and Aaron Moulton, who each organized separate shows in adjacent galleries, pulling work from the same artists. For added drama, there was a vote to choose the better show. At it’s best, forcing the audience to consider the behind the scenes development of an art[…..]

It’s par for the course for blue-chip galleries to mount so-called “museum quality” exhibitions, and hardly a surprise when they coincide with auctions and estate holdings. Readykeulous: The Hurtful Healer: The Correspondance Issue at INVISIBLE-EXPORTS is just as historically potent without being market driven. Founded in 2005 by artists Nicole Eisenman and A. L. Steiner, Ridykeulous has gained consistent momentum, and this is their strongest[…..]

L.A. Expanded: Notes from the West Coast A weekly column by Catherine Wagley “There are no easy happy endings anymore,” said writer David Levithan when interviewed about The Lover’s Dictionary, a novel told entirely through “definitions” of words like “aberrant” and “quixotic.” But there are no easy sad endings anymore, either–even though the romance the book dissects is doomed from the start, Levithan indulges in[…..]

Concerned with the role of the individual in society, Artur Żmijewski produces works which expose social conflicts. His manifesto, Applied Social Arts, anchors his practice in two ways – art as a valid means of knowledge production, and the use of art to address the political and the social. In comparison to the social sciences, art is seldom drawn upon as a form of knowledge.[…..]

With a broad mix of photographs from both unknown shutterbugs and internationally recognized artists, Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera Since 1870 at SFMOMA examines the images of a culture existing in an uneasy relationship to the camera. The exhibition probes our social connection to surveillance, pornography, and physical and emotional violence. Last week, Daily Serving’s Bean Gilsdorf sat down with Senior Curator of Photography[…..]

What makes an art exhibition political? The 2010 São Paulo Bienal, There is always a cup of sea to sail in, uses Brazilian poet Jorge de Lima’s line as a metaphorical container to address the ambitious theme of art and politics. The head curators Agnaldo Farias and Moacir dos Anjos see the title as an expression of the essential aspiration of the exhibition, “to affirm[…..]

I love how far the term “curate” has fallen. Once particular to egg-headed museum types who cared for collections of rarities, now curating, at least in marketing terms, means nothing more than making a kind of fancy or personalized choice. Instead of plain old dinner and a movie, you can now curate the best locavorian burger and artisanal fries while selecting a companion film from[…..]