Why curators are the caregivers of the art world

“Curators need to protect both artists and gallerists from their worst excesses," Singh says. “They often don’t share the same short- and long-term perspectives." Galleries run the risk of becoming too focused on sales and demand an assembly line mode of supply. Artists, on the other hand, can “become myopic, even tone deaf , and need to be reined in", he adds.

Beyond the inner circle of art enthusiasts, the role of a curator tends to remain shrouded in a haze of confusion. Is a curator’s job analogous to what a translator does for a writer? Or does their role entail writing jaw-breaking jargon-filled concept notes that only a chosen elite can make sense of? How does the curator connect the artist with the public?

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The word “curate" comes from the Latin root curare, meaning “to care". At their core, curators are supposed to be caretakers and caregivers. They can do so in several, often intersecting, fields—be it the arts, culinary experiences, hospitality, travel or consumer internet. Influencers can become curators of taste, as can critics and pop-culture icons.

In the world of the fine arts, thanks to the expertise of legendary curators like Hans Ulrich Obrist, curation has become a multidisciplinary field, with its distinctive vocabulary and politics. It is offered as a course in several institutions across the West, though not yet in India, where exhibitions have long been a joint enterprise of artists and gallerists. With the rise of conceptual art in the 2000s, along with the growth of a global market for Indian art, the curator’s role has become ever more important—as an arbiter between the artist and their audiences.

Early adopters

In the 2010s, when Prateek and Priyanka Raja opened Experimenter, a space to bring together emerging artists and their practice, in Kolkata, the couple were in their early 30s. “From the beginning, we thought of ourselves as a curatorial collective, not a white cube," says Priyanka Raja. “We wanted to learn from practitioners how to put together a show, work with artists and engage the public."

What started out as an experiment, prompted by personal curiosity, turned into an annual ritual, now known as the Curators’ Hub, where 8-10 experts from the art world are invited to talk about their practice each year. “These are individuals whose voices need to be heard widely," Priyanka Raja adds.

With each year, the appeal of the event has grown, and these days registrations usually go house full within a few hours of announcing the dates. “With each iteration of the hub. we not only want to keep ourselves abreast of the current thinking but also to break silos between the arts and craft, with the goal of putting together large-scale opinion-building exhibitions."

Traditionally, gallerists have worked with curators—and continue to do so—by inviting them to put together an exhibition based on a concept or theme. “They bring in the artist and the art, be it in a solo or group show," says Sunaina Anand, founder of Art Alive Gallery in Delhi. But there are occasions when new leaps have to be taken.

In 2008, when Art Alive invited poet Ashok Vajpeyi to curate a landmark show to celebrate 85 years of artist S.H. Raza, Anand flew down to Paris with the curator to visit the artist in his studio. “Having spent time in that space with Raza and hearing him talk about his art, the direction of the show shifted, and turned into a full-fledged festival, going far beyond art, with music, theatre and poetry thrown into the mix," she adds.

Today, more than ever before, curatorial practices straddle such interdisciplinary spaces as art and its audience collide with one another in intimate and unusual spaces. The late artist Hanif Kureshi, for instance, brought art out in the open by creating ambitious street murals, a curatorial feat that spawned a trend.

Then there are curators working with not-for-profit institutions, who need to grapple with questions that go far beyond the commercial value of the work.

Connecting the dots

“Our relationship with budget, market, material and even artists is different from that of a curator working with a commercial gallery," says Akansha Rastogi, senior curator at Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), Delhi. “We need to ask more fundamental questions—why is this dialogue between the artist and curator happening at this moment? What are the power and political dynamics between the artist and curator? How are we making the public a stakeholder in this exchange?"

These negotiations often play out over the years, as was the case with Very Small Feelings, an ambitious show that was part of a series featuring young and emerging artists co-curated by Rastogi at KNMA in 2023. “We commissioned several artists and nurtured them over the years," she says. “We needed to create pockets of conversations that could be sustained and retained, which ended up drawing a whole new crowd to the show."

Focusing on intergenerational perceptions of childhood, Very Small Feelings invited artists who work in early education, or with young people, to participate in the show, opening up a space for explorations and articulations that aren’t frequently heard in the public domain. The exhibition embraced the ideal of the curator as “a storyteller and an innovator", to borrow from a phrase by Roobina Karode, director and chief curator at KNMA.

Speaking of the importance of care in the context of curating, Karode says it pertains to caring for objects, audiences and ideas. “The curator’s role is to contextualise the work, make it accessible, and not from a scholarly lens alone," she says. For someone who learnt the art of curating on the job, she puts a premium on the exhilarating aspect of the work.

“What’s most interesting to me when I bring a work of art out of storage is how I can tell a story around it so that people can relate to it," Karode says. “And then there is the task of creating a space of quiet contemplation or retreat, depending on the flavour of the show, for the audience to engage with the work."

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As the builder of bridges between art and its audience, curators are entrusted by artists to fulfil a special role. “For me, it’s very exciting to have a chance to bring the work of an obscure artist to an audience or put together a show that makes people look at the life and career of an artist comprehensively," Karode says. “As a curator, you must start looking at the gaps and lacunae, find unsung and under-represented artists to bring them into the public consciousness."

So, the next time you enter a museum or gallery, don’t forget to tip your hat to the curator, who has almost as much of a hand in the outcome of the show as the artist.