Marco Arment:
Curator’s Code is an attempt to codify and standardize “via” links and attribution from link blogs and aggregators with two new symbols […]
The problems with online attribution aren’t due to a lack of syntax: they’re due to the economics and realities of online publishing.
Absolutely correct. This is a misguided attempt to rectify a problem that doesn’t exist.
Curatorial Discontent
Arment followed up by linking to Matt Langer’s piece, and specifically pulled one quote from it:
First, let’s just get clear on the terminology here: “Curation” is an act performed by people with PhDs in art history; the business in which we’re all engaged when we’re tossing links around on the internet is simple “sharing.”
The role of the curator has evolved in the past twenty-odd years [1], and the role that they play in contemporary art and museum circles is inconsistent with what most people believe it is. The role of the curator was essentially redefined by Brian O’Doherty’s excellent collection of essays Inside the White Cube.
At any rate, the English language is an ever-evolving beast. Merriam Webster defines a curator as:
one who has the care and superintendence of something; especially : one in charge of a museum, zoo, or other place of exhibit
No mention of doctorates or art history. In fact, the intent of this definition is arguably consistent with an aggregation and selection process. A person who selects works for an exhibit is doing so under a particular theme or narrative, and is knowledgable about those works, or gains the knowledge in a research process. What’s the difference between that and someone who is particularly knowledgable about a series of links that are selected amongst similar criteria as a curator might, and which fit within a certain theme or narrative?
That is to say that curation is about knowledge, information, context, and intent.
Langer continues:
“Interesting things” or “smart things” are not rubrics that make the collection and dissemination of data that happens on the internet anything closer to a curatorial act; these categories are ultimately still reducible to “things I find appealing,” and regardless of how special one might feel about the highly cultivated state of his or her tastes there is no threshold of how many other people are eager to be on the receiving end of whatever it is we’re sharing that somehow magically transforms this act into curation […]
There are good curators and bad curators in the art world as well. I deliberately left out this final criteria for a curator (above) because one can be poor at something, yet still be involved in the activity.
I agree with the majority of the remainder of Langer’s article, despite the running undertones of resentment.
- This is perhaps the best essay regarding Partners that’s freely-accessible. However, Ernst van Alphen’s essay entitled “Exhibition as Narrative Work of Art”—and included in the exhibition catalogue—presents the best take on the intricacies of the exhibit. It’s a marvellous work.