September 13, 2016

Student wins curatorship at regional gallery

For UOW student and curatorial intern at the Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Nicola Dowse, curating means learning and teaching at the same time, maintaining a balance between curiosity and reason.

“I think art curators need to have an eye and passion for staging artwork in a way that creates interest in an art exhibition, says Nicola.

The double degree student studying a Bachelor of Creative Arts and a Bachelor of Media and Communications is the first curatorial intern as part of a new five-year initiative between Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre and UOW’s Visual Arts program.

The partnership was established by Hazelhurst curator, Carrie Kibbler, and UOW visual arts lecturer, Dr Madeleine Kelly, and provides real life work experience in an exhibition space. The Sutherland Shire gallery will also hold an annual UOW art exhibition to support emerging artists in southern Sydney and the Illawarra over the next five years.

“The internship provides an opportunity to practise diverse skills - from planning the annual UOW exhibition to researching other exhibitions the gallery”, says Dr Kelly.

The new internship will provide the opportunity to develop the skills needed to work in a range of exhibition environments, as well as initiate independent projects.

“The great thing about university is you have room to make decisions and try a lot of different things. So, when the opportunity came up at Hazelhurst, I thought, ‘yep, I’ll give that a go’,” says Nicola.

These days an art curator requires multi-tasking as the job entails being responsible for a gallery’s collection, selecting art to be displayed, organising art exhibitions, researching artists, plus a lot of emailing.

“There are lots of other things I do. I meet with upcoming artists, host portfolio reviews, chat with visiting art lovers, work out inventory, run errands and solve tech problems,” explains Nicola.
So what makes a good curator?

According to Hazelhurst curator Carrie Kibbler, communication is one of the biggest things.

“Communication between the artist and curator is paramount. Acquiring and building relationships with artists, collectors and critics are vital components for a gallery's success.”

Over the past couple of decades, the art world has grown like never before. There are more galleries, more fairs, more art-selling websites and bigger art museums. There is even a new kind of cultural figure – the international curator, who is producing art exhibitions and events around the world.

So how does a creative artist and journalism student approach the challenge of curating?

“Communication is one of the biggest things, and planning is also really important. There are lots of things you need to take into account. Who are the artists? What types of artworks are you going to display and will they fit? Then there is writing about the art. Whether it’s for a media release, art catalog or maybe a brochure.”

At times, the role of an art curator overlaps with a range of other roles. Not only is the curator known as the interpreter of art, the person responsible for the content of a particular show, but he or she needs to have knowledge across a broad spectrum of contemporary culture, politics, and economics as well as a vast knowledge of art history.