Research News
Curating Architecture
Curating Architecture is a research initiative set up by the Curating Programme, Department of Visual Arts. Its aim is to interrogate ideas proposed by recent and recurring influences of architecture on curatorial practice through the joint development of critical discourse and curatorial commissioning processes.
Curating Architecture launched in January this year and will run over two years. The research will be carried out via two strands:
1. Four research seminars (January-December 2007) for a research group including artists, architects, curators, theorists. The research seminars will each be a day long and will be held at Goldsmiths. A different international speaker will be asked to contribute a paper to each seminar and members of the research group will be invited to respond. The papers and proceedings will be published initially on the Curating Architecture website, www.goldsmiths/visual-arts/curating-architecture.
2. Four commissions developed alongside research seminars, organised by curators in the curating architecture team. The exhibition of works will take place between January and December 2008. The exhibitions and their sites will be determined through discussion with artists and producers and informed by discussions in seminars.
Curating Architecture was officially launched in March with a lecture by accalimed conceptual artists and architect Vito Acconci.
Dr Andrea Phillips who is leading the research says Curating Architecture has been organised to re-think what is often assumed to be the clear transition between architectural ideas, artistic concepts and specific sites within the developing field of curating. “When artists adopt architectural languages, when architects propose artistic concepts of display, when curators develop proposals with architects, what is constructed in the gallery, museum or ‘off’ site? Are the movements between art and architectural practices as easy as is often proposed? What is to be gained and what is lost by their convergence? These are some of the questions we have set out to answer.”
The team also hope that the research generated through Curating Architecture will make a significant contribution to debates about spatial organisation and its cultural consequences.
The Curating Architecture team:
Director: Dr Andrea Phillips
Curators: Dr Andrew Renton and Lisa Le Feuvre
Post-Doctoral Research Assistant: Edgar Schmitz
Admin assistant: Miranda Pope
Curating Architecture has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Henry Moore Foundation. For more details contact Andrea by e-mail andrea.phillips (@gold.ac.uk), or by phone on 020 7919 7691.