Lecture Questions/Response: Fionn Meade

1. When you are writing about the shows you have curated, how important is it for you to really have a relationship with the artist's whose work you're including in the show?

2. As a curator, how do you find a balance between the various elements of a group show or collection? Do you prefer to find a particular theme to go by? Or do you let the work inform the overall idea behind a collection?

Response:

To be honest, this lecture was very odd for me. For starters, it was different hearing the thoughts of a curator and writer, but I also found that I had a bit of trouble accessing what he was saying. He introduced a lot of information and thought into a short amount of time, and often the transition between topics was a bit off. There was one moment when he talked about Franz Boas that I connected with, having just talked about him in my anthropology class recently. It was interesting hearing about him from an arts perspective rather than an anthropological one. Meade talked about how Boas took a secret image (of the Hamatsa ritual) and put it forward as a representative image. The image was blown up into this huge deal, and was appropriated well beyond the intended reasons.

Something else that was very interesting was the statement Meade opened up with. He said that the image was an "object or container of belief". Meade also questioned what came after images, and what remains after you close your eyes. He also touched on appropriation and montage.

3 words:

appropriation

montage

object