Curatorial Cult Club/Kwestion Quration?

The conceptual project, Curatorial Cult Club/Kwestion Quration? at the Walker Art Center Open Field commons was an artist curated, ten week participatory and performative solo exhibition and alternative publication project. The hybridic project started as a post work/happy hour discussion group that questioned the shape shifting status of curation. Based in the variables of viewer and audience participation, museum rules and guidelines, and artist and museum worker communication, the project changed shape throughout the summer with weekly art and social dialogue, interactivity, and exchange.

The three main goals of the Curatorial Cult Club/Kwestion Quration? were to: 1. Demystify and discuss the multiple vectors of the curator, the curation field, and the curatorial habitat and ecosystem. 2. Co-Curate a participatory exhibition/event within the Open Field commons that questions curation. 3. Self-publish our curatorial discussion/outcome in an alternative publication at the end of the summer.

Multiple curation topics and definitions were informed organically via participant discussion. From curatorial models and museological structures to the curator as a developer of institutional memory, the weekly conversation acted as a springboard to our collective exhibition and publication. Topics included but were not limited to: Curatorial & Museological Spatiality, Habitats, & Structures; Curatorial Cults & Curator Star Status; Curator Traveler/Art Tourist; Curator as Critic, Collector, Gallery Owner; Curator as Participant & Viewer; Academic & Institutional Curator Vs. the Everyday Armchair Curator; Curatorial Capitalism & Markets; and a Curatorial Information Exchange.

Each week a brief structure was followed and expanded upon by the artist and participants: Creating the sandwich board, conversing with participants, distributing visual study handouts, taking physical or handwritten surveys, performing interactive tasks, recording documentational cell phone photos and videos, as well as follow up with internet post distribution via social media.

One week offered the theme of the Pontoon Boat as Curatorial Ecosystem, where participants engaged in the topic of the common Pontoon Boat as a site for aesthetic, creative and curatorial exchange. Another weekly theme questioned human nature and curatorial behavior with What Cereals do Curators Eat?, by engaging viewers in an interactive and participatory Curator Flakes cereal taste test. A live Curatorial Fly Swatter Survey was another theme, where common fly swatters were given to museum goers to curate, operate, and manipulate.