How curators went from caretakers to art stars — and why there are curators for everything now

I recently realized that I live a curated life, which sounds very fancy. Besides all the curated exhibitions I see at galleries, I've eaten from curated menus, I've read from curated booklists and my uncle just told me he curated a playlist for me that I'll never listen to because ... uncles.

But it got me to think, what is a curator anyway? Why do they matter? And what does curating actually mean?

I'm Professor Lise (not really a Professor) and this is Art 101 (not really a class). We're here to go on a deep dive of an idea, an artwork, or a story from the art world that's controversial, inexplicable, or just plain weird.

Today on Art 101, we'll look at how curators went from caretakers to art stars and how that term has made it from the gallery to the restaurant and to my uncle's playlist I'll never listen to.

The word curator comes from the Latin word curare, which means "to care". And in keeping with that, curatores in ancient Rome were just that: caretakers. They were civil servants overseeing things like aqueducts, buildings, even sewers. They took care of systems and resources, from sanitation to corn. They were an important part of making sure life ran smoothly in a civic centre. 

In the medieval period, a curatus was a different figure in charge of issues of the soul, rather than urban life. As a caretaker within the church in England, a curatus was there to ensure the safety of the people rather than the building.

It was a few more centuries before we got our modern idea of a curator — a caretaker of a collection of art or artifacts, a custodian of objects, books or documents.

As we move to the 20th and then the 21st century, curators also became makers of meaning. Here's the thing: when you see an exhibition of art, it's a story that you're being told. Curators, who work at or are hired by institutions, create those stories by selecting works of art to come together, often with wall text, a catalogue and an arrangement that puts them in context. And all of that allows us to see sometimes dissimilar artworks, put together to reinforce an idea. The stories they tell change over time. In the beginning of the 20th century, the story may have been about artists like Picasso or Matisse who were challenging linear perspective. I have a whole class about that one.

In the 50s and 60s, those stories may have a been about abstract expressionism, the cold war or minimalism, Vietnam protests or civil rights. And sometimes the stories curators have told have been wrong — such as the Royal Ontario Museum's "Into The Heart of Africa" from November 1989. The exhibition ended up being taught in curatorial studies programs as an example of what curators should never do. The ROM even apologized for having contributed to anti-African racism. And in the years since, the ROM has curated programs like "Of Africa" and exhibitions like "Here We Are Here: Black Canadian Contemporary Art" that have worked to create a new narrative about Black artists from Canada and Africa and create a new understanding of their work.

See, curators play an essential role in making sure everybody has an equal seat at the table — Black artists, Indigenous artists, artists from all marginalized communities as well as the standard European guys who were always part of the canon. Curators can help us understand why artists make the work they do, and they make sure we see it in context. They grab on to new ideas in the culture and let us see art in a way we've never seen it before. 

Think of them as cultural caretakers, shuttling us into the future — with art! 

OK, so what does this have to do with curated menus, playlists and clothing stores? This one's a little bit about appropriation, taking the word that was from caretakers and makers and meanings and transporting it to shop windows and soft restaurant openings. It's true, I guess — playlists, menus and your capsule wardrobe can be curated in the sense that aesthetic choices have been made, and objects or pairs of pants can be put together to tell a story about your look, a restaurant's culinary leanings or how much my uncle really really loves yacht rock. But, I'm going to be a snob and say that we've diluted the word a little bit, because curators are more than people who make decisions about which painting sits next to which at a gallery. They've changed and continue to change the way we see history. They complicate old, outdated notions, and they help us to see how art reflects and challenges the world around us.

See you next time fro another edition of Art 101.