Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev the 54 year old American Art historian and curator has been listed by ArtReview as the number one world ‘mover and shaker’ in its Power 100 list, the first time the position has been occupied by a female. Christov-Bakargiev was the Artistic Director of the current year’s dOCUTMENTA 13 exhibition in Kassel, regarded generally as an outstanding exhibition with record setting attendances. Coline Milliard for an Blouin Artinfo article states “globe-trotting curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev is the most powerful figure in the art world, according to ArtReview’s Power 100 list. In this much-awaited Who’s Who — published yearly by the veteran art magazine for more than ten years…  That it has taken over a decade for ArtReview’s Power 100 to have a female number one might well be indicative of a lingering gender inequality in the visual arts. And to get there, Christov-Barkargiev has had to pull out the big guns. Her critically acclaimed dOCUMENTA(13) … was the most popular dOCUMENTA ever. 860,000 people saw her show in Kassel, and an extra 27,000 visited the Kabul outpost (in total almost twice as much as the number of visitors at the last Venice Biennale). …The Power 100 jury is undisclosed but it is said to be composed of twenty members from different parts of the world, including staff from ArtReview’s editorial team. Shortlisted high-flyers were considered for their activity between September 2011 and September 2012. The criteria – “local and international influence” and “impact” — are almost as nebulous as the concept of power they are supposed to pinpoint. Yet few art professionals would deny that ArtReview’s 2012 Power 100 feels like a credible snapshot of the art world in the last twelve months.”

Inspired by Coline Milliard ow.ly/eU7PC image source Facebook ow.ly/eU7NN

Julia Ramírez Blanco the 26 year old Spanish Art historian and critic has published an article in The Nation Magazine titled ‘How Young Madrid Rejects Austerity: The What and Why of 25S’. Blanco states “Young people in Spain grew up in a country where most citizens had access to all levels of education, where the welfare state provided healthcare, and where access to university permitted dreams of a decent future. Now all this has suddenly disappeared in the name of austerity, which the government has unilaterally proclaimed the only option. None of the measures being implemented appeared in campaign platforms of the governing conservative party Partido Popular, now 10 months into its tenure in office. With university fees rising, general social budgets disappearing and the youth unemployment rate over 50 percent, it is no wonder that many young people feel cheated. The protest encampments of the indignados sprouted all over Spain in May 2011, and since then demonstrations have cropped up regularly in objection to specific measures—cuts to education, cuts to healthcare, cuts to mining subsidies. But on September 25 of this year, the indignation took the form of a clear and confrontational questioning of the entire governing system. The goal of the action was to “highlight the distance between governors and citizens, and to demand the reopening of the constitutional process.” …Spanish youth, who grew up in a good educational system and enjoyed many social rights, has been jolted. They are too awake, now, to simply sit back and accept their popularly-anointed status as a generation “without a future.””

Inspired by The Nation ow.ly/eIWDD image source The Art of Engagement ow.ly/eIWun

Terence Edwin Smith the 68 year old Australian art historian, art critic and artist renowned for his ability “to write criticism at once alert to the forces that contextualize art and sensitive to the elements and qualities that inhere to the works of art themselves”, has been interviewed by Orit Gat. In the interview Smith states “To give something back to curators. We all owe them a huge debt. When you’re an art historian, you tend to search museum installations and exhibitions for fresh art historical facts, for something that will help you interpret more deeply, or at least differently, a school of art or the work of an artist over a whole career. If you’re an art critic, you try to write about your response to the works in the exhibition, one by one or one compared to others, with a focus on the artist or a kind of art. But art critics, art historians, the general public, and even artists don’t pay sufficient attention to the curatorial thought behind exhibitions. …[curators] have become more active, more public thinkers…and call themselves “exhibition makers.” They overtly engage viewers with their thinking about art, and particularly about how art relates to the world—which is something that art itself has done much more since the 1960s and 1970s. Also, curators have become more like artists in the ways they present an exhibition–it then becomes, in a sense, an artwork. At the same time, certain artists are making works of art that are more like exhibitions, and more and more are taking control of exhibiting their own art…”

Inspired by Blouin Artinfo ow.ly/e0ddo image source PittEdu ow.ly/e0dOm