Yannick Pouliot, “Empire possessif”, Collection of the artist, Photo: Guy L’Heureux.
Have you ever wondered who decides what works or exhibitions go into the Museum. Or what credentials works are chosen by. AS ART is such an ambiguous concept, lord knows I have. So I went to one of the leading experts in our field to find out. He is the man who has helped curate such BOLD exhibitions as the awe inspiring Marcel Dzama:Of Many Turns, Yannick Pouliot’s MONUMENTAL solo showing in 2008, and this years Innovative Québec Triennial. I had the opportunity to sit down with Mark Lanctôt a curator from the Musée D’art contemporain de Montréal and ask the ambiguous questions that lead to the answer of what is art. Here is a structured version of the organic conversation we had. His extreme knowledge, intelligence and passion for art flowed like poetry in a lover’s ear. This is how he addressed these direct questions on an indirect subject.
Dzama’s “Banks of the Red River” 2008 Collection of the Musee
1) How long have you been a curator and how did you become one?
ML) I started curating in about 2002. First, as an independent curator, which was near impossible being young and just out of school, with limited resources and limited tools VERY FEW PEOPLE can pull it off. Mainly I was working with friends, co-ordinating and collaborating with them in group shows. Most of my exhibitions where on paper rather than galleries at that point, it was mostly notebooks and taking ideas that sort of thing, I also worked professionally at a private gallery while still in school. I worked at the Bellefeuille gallery, then at the AGAC (the Montreal’s Contemporary Art Gallery association). I did more writing than I did curating. I had the opportunity to write for Montrealplus.ca which was a small gig that paid VERY WELL I wrote short reviews of exhibitions while working other jobs. I saw a lot of shows and met a lot of people
I got my Master of Arts in Art History at the University of Montreal. I stated here at the Musée as an exhibitions curator in 2006 on contract. When the person I had been hired to replace decided to retired I reapplied for my job and got it. My job here is to propose shows and curate shows – some are from me and others have been assigned to me by the chief curator Mdame. Fraser. We work as a team.
2) What influenced you to become a curator?
ML) You mean rather than going into literature or something like that? ART has a GREAT WAY of being OPEN. IT’S AN OPENNESS THAT I FIND INTERESTING. There is room for your mind to meander. Which non creative fields don’t really allow. I think that the idea that there is a place where ideas aren’t set in stone, that aren’t recycled, that aren’t appropriated in a pragmatic way is interesting. I think the MAIN DRAW is UNINSTERMENTALIZED THOUGHT. There is a GREAT FREEDOM AS ANYTHING CAN BE ART, BUT NOT EVERYTHING is ART. Which is an interesting and real nuance. I find that very empowering and stimulating intellectually and even maybe emotionally. It is also one of the places where it’s okay to be confused or not understand which can be a good place to be sometimes. To have one’s CERTAINTIES swept out from under them IS GOOD and ART probably DOES THAT MOST EFFECTIVELY because of the LACK OF DIRECT LANGUAGE. So that’s really appealing to me. I think I was also drawn to also working with artists, the IDEA of BEING IN TOUCH with the CREATIVE PROCESS and CONTRIBUTING TO IT.
I also wanted to work outside of academic circles. It was more interesting to me to work with the here and now, concretely with objects and showing. Participating in the artistic process as opposed to being more removed and more on the receiving end, in the analytical end that scholars tend to be. It’s sorta like being behind the scenes and pushing the work forward, as opposed to receiving it then taking stock and looking at it from a distance. IT’s a DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE.
3) Do you or did you ever make art?
ML) No I never really made “ART”. I wouldn’t call what I’ve done making art. I participated in a collective show where I KINDDA made art.
I was also asked to show some found photographs of mine, I didn’t make those works I just showed them. It was a very hands-off thing. At one point I did do a lot of photography but I wouldn’t call it “ART” as it was photography for my own pleasure.
4) Do you own your own art collection?
ML) I wouldn’t call it a collection but I do own art. My wife and I both own works that we have amassed collectively. Once we got together we realized we owned quite a bit of art. It’s not thought of AS A COLLECTION, it is just work that struck us and we acquired. My wife, Susannah Wesley, is an artist so she traded for a lot of it. We also got presents from artists friends for our wedding and such. It is not an ACTIVE thing we go out and do. A lot of the art work is shown. We have about 20 works hanging in a small space and we do rotate the works on our walls. It’s almost like an exhibition when we DECORATE.
PIERRE DORION’s “Tie”, 2007 Oil on Linen
5) Who are some of your favorite Canadian Artists?
ML) I tend to not have favorites because it’s kindda unfair in a way. My favorite artists tend to change. IT’S LIKE WHAT EVER IS PLAYING ON YOUR I-POD. Right now I am working on a show with PIERRE DORION, so his work is very interesting to me. He’s the one I am reading most about right now. And of course there are always artists that I am discovering that become interesting to me. It changes depending on your mood. Artists who caught my interest in the past year? HMMM… Even that’s a tough one. One artist that surprised me this year was Sophie Bélair-Clément, who is in the triennial. I thought her work this year was really good. I also found Daniel Giroux and Christian Young who won the SOBEY AWARD this year interesting. I worked with them in February . AND whooo elsee did I think was stands out?… I also think Justin Stephens is another artist whose work stands out, he is a pretty straight forward painter , an abstract painter. John Knowles is very interesting to me also. I have been following him since the last triennial. Pretty much EVERYONE we SHOWED in THE TRIENNIAL this year I feel pretty comfortable with. Then there is Valérie Blass who has a show coming up in February who VERY STRONG and whose work is different from the other art we’ve discussed as it’s very organic and material based, intuitive, smart sculpture.
Valérie Blass’ “Femme panier”, 2010, permanent collection of Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art
6) What type of artistic qualities do YOU look for when looking to propose an artist to show at this level?
ML) A variety of things are considered AESTHETIC MERIT, TIMELESSNESS, how it CONNECTS with the LOCAL COMMUNITY. Not just the arts community, but the public at large. It really is a balance of those qualities. Really, it’s a balancing act. How it transcends its own thingness, by what the object is or isn’t. EVERYTHING THAT DRAWS ME to WORKING WITH ART DRAWS ME to THE ART WORKS. So it’s those things : the openness, the freedom, the experimental nature, the aesthetic qualities, the intelligence of an art work and how it how it goes beyond being what it is. All of that falls into play. All of that is important. So that can be applied to a wide range of styles of art: it could be VERY CONCEPTUAL or VERY EXPRESSIONISTIC, it doesn’t really matter. It’s about how the work responds to what it sets out to do and how it goes beyond that. When you look at an object it’s not just a passive thing; it is also emitting ideas, preconceptions, questions that in themselves and in what I am thinking about when looking at the work represent a journey. It’s not just about following an artist from point a to point b or the evolution of different art works during that journey. It goes beyond that. How telling is the work? How does it speak and what does it say? Does it have legs and HOW FAR CAN IT GO? These questions even make me question those questions. Does this work question our preconceived notion of what TIMELESS ART WORKS are?
Justin Stephens “Cabin Fever” 2008
7) What other type qualities are considered when looking at an ARTIST?
ML)Well an artist needs too…. It’s funny because you try to work with an artist who is serious about what they are doing. THAT IS VERY IMPORTANT. It’s important they don’t take what they are doing lightly. That THEY ARE COMMITTED and PUSHING THEMSELVES, it’s not like : “OH WELL, they’re a REALLY NICE PERSON who WORKS HARD SO LETS GIVE THEM A SHOW if the work doesn’t go anywhere, then…”
It’s more about how that person engages the wilder world through his or her art. It can be at any level of a career. It can be someone just graduating from their M.F.A.; it could be someone who has gone back to school in their 40’s and 50’s; it could be a person who just started making art in their 50’s; it could be a person who has made art for thirty years and suddenly there is a new energy or maturity. It could be someone within or without the commercial system; it could be someone in the city, outside of Montréal, national, international; it could be anyone from anywhere. THERE ARE NO SOCIOLOGICAL PRECEPTS or PREJUDICES that are taken into consideration.
There are artists who show in commercial galleries where a lot of the roster has had some success but that artist in particular hasn’t. It happens. THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES!!!! Like being with a “BIG” GALLERY is not a GUARANTEE TO FULL OUT INSTITUTIONAL VISIBILITY, SUCCESS and COLLECTIONS and all that. There isn’t even a GUARANTEE YOU WILL LIVE BETTER IF YOU SELL WORK. THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES.
8)What is the difference between an art dealer or someone who sets up shows in commercial gallery setting as apposed to what you do?
ML) WELL AN ART GALLERY FEEDS THE MARKET. Their idea is to sell work, that is their goal. Whereas a curator is not interested in sales, they are not necessarily interested in drawing collectors to their shows. They are more interested in showing the PUBLIC things that are INTERESTING. That brings a different perspective. It’s a different audience. They overlap of course, as in we go to galleries to see shows and we are part of the market, in a way because we buy work. WHAT WE PUT OUT THERE, isn’t to feed the market. IT IS TO PARTICIPATE in the CULTURE. That would be the main difference.
9) What do you believe a curator’s role is when presenting an artist to the public?
ML) It’s to make sure the artist’s work is presented in the best light possible, the highest quality of presentation within the allowed context. Here, we have one context, other curators have other ones. It is also IMPORTANT TO RESPECT the ARTIST’S VISION. The idea is that you are mediating or acting as a throughway. You shouldn’t be blocking or have TOO MUCH INFLUENCE on what happens. Instrumentalising the work beyond recognition to one’s own ends is a BIG NO-NO. This is something, to me, that is to be avoided. It is almost an ethical question. And there is AN ETHICAL WAY TO WORK and an UNETHICAL WAY TO WORK. I feel comfortable saying that. There is always A NEGOTIATION as it is not set in stone. There are things that can be perceived as an instrumentalisation of the artist’s work but that could very CURATORIAL SAVVY or CURITORIALLY DARING, thereby making instrumentalisation of the work okay because it is bringing a new reading of the work that may not have been very evident from the get go. So it brings a new reading or direction that is actually fruitful, not just a whim. WE have to be careful of things done on a whim or superficially or decoratively.
10) How do curators influence modern art?
ML) A lot has been said about THE POWER OF THE CURATOR and HOW POWER HAS SHIFTED from the critic to the curator. So we have shifted from text to space and how our telling of what tomorrow’s art history will be. So that shift is there. The idea of the exhibition and how the methodology and ethics around the exhibition have REALLY been REFLECTED UPON a GREAT DEAL. It has been CRITICIZED, ANALYZED and DECONSTRUCTED. I am not sure that whether it’s because the curator is influential that all this idea of curation and the theories of curating have been analyzed to this degree OR if it’s vice versa. We have dedicated so much attention to understanding what CURATING IS, that it has created a lot of importance that probably was not there initially. So again, it’s a give and take, but I think curators’ impact WILL ALWAYS BE LESSENED OR TEMPERED BY ARTISTS because ARTISTS are the FUEL TO THE ENGINE. SO NO ART, NO NOTHING. Artists are always the ones that move things forward. There are also institutions that don’t work with curator, they are artists-run or committee based or artists themselves are the ones behind the decisions. The idea of selecting and pointing out and reorganizing and exhibiting is something that will always be around. Because you can write all you want, there can be websites with images, but really PEOPLE ARE GOING TO WANT TO SEE THE OBJECTS. And in the long term, WHEN WE ARE TALKING ABOUT MODERN ART, THE HISTORICAL IMPACT OF what MODERN ART WAS and WHAT CONTEMPORARY ART IS, THE ART OF TOMORROW is GOING TO BE DETERMINED BY what the ACTUAL OBJECTS or the LACK of OBJECTS are, or what the experience is . SO in that regard, curators will continue to play a PRETTY SIGNIFICANT ROLE.
11) Why is art important to society?
ML) See the above article (jokingly)
Christian Giroux and Daniel Young some of their sculptural work made with ikea furniture
12) What is the BEST ADVICE you can give to an artist that dreams of seeing their work in a space like the Musee?
ML) Just to KEEP WORKING, BE INTERESTED, and not just be SHUT OFF working in their studio. Be interested, a least a little in the fact there is a WHOLE WORLD OUT THERE. Be interested in OTHER PEOPLES WORK, LEGITIMATELY; FIND A WAY to FIND SOMETHING INTERESTING OUT THERE. PARTICIPATE IN THE COMMUNITY. To participate in the community IS NOT the GOAL of a PRACTICE, but THE IDEA OF SHOWING SOME INTEREST AND BEING RECEPTIVE TO OTHERS is important. You can’t just wall yourself in and expect some one to ring your door-bell. You have to engage in others people’s ideas and it that will feed your art making as well. I have a friend in Vancouver who when asked this question often answers BE NICE! If someone has a choice to work with a nice person or an asshole they will always chose the nice person (laughs). So, that would be my advice
Posted in art, art history, Art Review, Canadian Art, Contemporary Art, Contemporary Artist, Interviews, Modern Art, Montreal Tour, oil painting, rossetto ink, Tour Guide, Walking Tour
Tags: Great Canadian Artist's, how do curators see art, How does someone get art work into a Museum, How is art selected for a museum, Interview with Museum curator, Musee D'art contemporain Montreal, Questions curators ask about art, Questions to know about art, what is the difference between museums and galleries, Who chooses art for the contemporary museum
