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Approaching curating from a historiographical perspective is undoubtedly an orthodox and long-established method. Yet what we are facing today is a far more complex set of political and economic conditions, alongside continuously evolving modes of production. Curating, as it operates within art institutions, capital markets, cities, and even nation-states, exerts varying degrees of influence while simultaneously undergoing processes of self-transformation. In an era of consumption driven by myth-making, the curator is by no means a super-artist, nor should the curator be reduced to a broker within the art market. The creative nature of curating lies in working in complicity with art itself, producing visual languages and meanings that connect different individuals, cultures, and social realities, allowing thought to remain mobile in the present while risking collision with existing systems. Any discussion of curating within gallery institutions must therefore extend its analysis into the dynamics of the art economy if we are to examine the evolving forms of contemporary curatorial practice.

Art Has No Price: The Sacralization and Conversion of Form

What we call the art world is constructed through the activities of museums, artists, curators, art critics, galleries, auction houses, and collectors. Within this system, museums seek to negotiate their public role and the establishment of cultural property amid paradigm shifts; artists hope to gain recognition from museums and major collectors; curators rely on art criticism to frame and legitimize exhibitions; galleries and auction houses activate the economic circulation of art through collecting; and collectors, through museum acquisition mechanisms, further elevate the intangible value of artworks.

Whenever the value of art is discussed, one frequently hears the refrain: “Art is priceless, because true art exists on the level of humanistic spirit and cannot be measured in monetary terms; its value ultimately resides in the judgment of the viewer.” This politically correct and lofty explanation is also a rhetorical device that obscures value, facilitates speculation, and sustains the sacralization of art. Its consequence is an extreme yet familiar reality: for audiences who feel no connection to art, art holds no value at all.

“Art is priceless” functions much like an electoral slogan, fueling both cynical devotion and fervent belief. In many ways, it proves more persuasive than the actual mechanisms through which the art world operates. This compels us to revisit a fundamental question: when Marcel Duchamp placed a urinal inside a museum, what cultural, political, and economic conditions made that gesture possible? And how has Asia, from that moment onward, inhabited a markedly different historical trajectory? With the emergence of conceptual art, aesthetic universality ceased to serve as a shared foundation. When art came to depend primarily on the artist’s personal belief and inner world, what meaning does art retain, and why does it continue to command reverence?

As Jeff Poe once remarked in an interview, “The art world has nothing to do with power; it has to do with control. Power can be crude, but control is subtle and precise. It begins with the artist, because the work determines how the game will unfold.” For those reading these words, and for the one writing them, we are all participants in this opaque mechanism—or perhaps extras observing the spectacle from the margins.

The art world is broader and more ambiguous than the art market. While the art market encompasses galleries, collectors, and auction houses engaged in transactions, the art world is primarily shaped through the activities of artists, curators, and critics. These two spheres operate through different configurations of capital and market relations, yet they remain mutually entangled. Intangible capital—such as institutional reputation, symbolic value, and personal credibility—ultimately converges with monetary capital to form a distinctive currency circulating within the art world.

Museums, in this sense, function to render art “priceless” once again. Through acquisition, artworks are transformed into public assets and symbols of civilization and progress. Because of this public character, collecting within museums differs fundamentally from collecting within galleries or auction systems. Artists, curators, critics, galleries, auction houses, and collectors each operate through different “exchange rates,” even as they participate in the same symbolic economy. Many canonical artworks do not emerge spontaneously but are shaped by specific historical and political-economic conditions and sustained through collective endorsement. This does not negate artistic value; it simply reveals that our shared belief in art is neither as simple nor as mysterious as we often assume.

Institutions that Promote the Art Economy through Collecting

A significant portion of modern art history is inseparable from the history of collecting. From medieval transactions in which artists sold works directly to churches or aristocrats for subsistence, through the rapid expansion of the bourgeois class and the emergence of early art markets in the nineteenth century, to the confrontation between private galleries and museums or salons in the twentieth century, these intertwined historical, social, and political-economic processes directly or indirectly shaped art history, the art market, and the criteria by which value is exchanged.

At this point, one might ask why a discussion of contemporary curating spends so much time outlining the structure of the art world and market. The reason is similar to the problem embedded in the slogan “art is priceless.” As history has shown, art’s sacred aura was not dismantled by Duchamp or Andy Warhol. Instead, it merged with new forms of capital, multiplying its incarnations and continuing to exist in different artistic “churches” and “temples.” In this sense, contemporary art often appears as an alternative religion for a secular world.

The problem we face today lies in the sharp divisions between art institutions, art education, and the art market. Even when art education reveals gaps in understanding, it simultaneously implants incomplete notions of “the contemporary” deep within our thinking. If discussions of contemporary curating rely solely on experiential or disciplinary approaches, knowledge production becomes detached from processes of production and risks remaining an empty exercise. To discuss curating in galleries, such a clearing of ground is therefore necessary.

Curating within Galleries

Curating within galleries is not new. In most cases, it is evaluated through individual exhibitions and their contributions to the art world. However, if we shift the focus toward the impact of curatorial practice on gallery institutions, the issue of curating as cultural production becomes more concrete. This requires an understanding of both the history of collecting and the operational logic of gallery institutions.

Galleries often function as intermediaries between artists and museums, curators, critics, and collectors. Ideally, a gallery is committed to sustaining an artist’s creative development rather than merely generating profit, often positioning itself in opposition to auction houses and the secondary market, especially when representing artists who are still actively producing work. As private institutions operating without reliance on government support, galleries face the challenge of balancing sustainable growth with long-term care for artistic practices. They must also consider how to support experimental art that is not immediately transaction-oriented and how to establish mechanisms of cultural production that give back to the broader cultural ecology.

All of these dimensions are grounded in physical space and exhibitions—whether through regular gallery programs, participation in top-tier international art fairs, or the experimental risks inherent in engaging with contemporary art. A primary-market gallery that only sells artworks without caring about exhibitions is little different from a secondary-market dealer. Likewise, without exhibitions and continual artistic breakthroughs, a gallery’s branding and promotion become hollow gestures. It is here that the role of the curator within the gallery begins to emerge, centered on exhibitions and sustained artistic development.

The Reconfiguration of Institutional Culture through Curating

From a personal standpoint, the conditions of curating within a gallery institution differ significantly from those of independent curatorial practice. The one constant is that curatorial thinking must not be dictated by the institution. The values and conceptual framework of curatorial practice cannot be displaced by commercial considerations. This constitutes an ethical baseline and is also an area in which galleries engaged in market activity must consciously strive.

For primary-market galleries oriented toward contemporary art, the uncertainty of market valuation necessitates a division of labor, creating space for curators to redistribute resources and contribute to the reconfiguration of institutional culture. In this context, curatorial practice extends beyond exhibition production and becomes a means of shaping the internal logic of the institution itself.

Case Studies: Tina Keng Gallery, TKG+, and TKG+ Projects

Within the limits of this discussion and my own experience, I turn to three cases: Tina Keng Gallery, TKG+, and TKG+ Projects. Founded over thirty years ago, Tina Keng Gallery represents works already positioned within art history in the Chinese-speaking world, alongside mid-career Taiwanese artists. Its exhibitions emphasize collecting practices, artists’ career development, market cultivation, and art-historical framing, reflecting the aesthetic orientation of the gallery founder. At times, this has included curatorial strategies that resist auction-driven speculation and excessive market inflation, such as the 2018 exhibition Sanyu’s Hidden Blossoms: Through the Eyes of a Dandy, which deliberately shifted away from hagiographic narratives.

Established in 2009, TKG+ focuses on contemporary media and conceptual practices. From a market perspective, this is a far more unstable terrain, requiring longer periods of care for artists and extended waiting times before market validation. Exhibitions are often oriented toward attracting the attention of museums and biennials, as institutional recognition frequently precedes market stability. Working with contemporary art is, in this sense, a gamble, exemplified by figures such as Damien Hirst, Murakami Takashi, and Banksy. As a result, recognition by museums, biennials, and curators, along with collecting, functions as a form of certification prior to market consolidation.

Formally launched in 2015, TKG+ Projects operates as a non-sales-oriented platform focused on experimentation and the cultivation of young Taiwanese artists and curators. While it functions under the umbrella of a gallery, it paradoxically performs as an alternative space—conducting experiments characteristic of non-institutional contexts while generating internal momentum for reflection and self-critique within the gallery institution itself.

Conclusion

Across these cases, it becomes evident that spatial and organizational conditions directly determine the limits and possibilities of production. Each institution develops its own mode of exhibition production shaped by its objective conditions. If gallery curating is reduced to the production of individual exhibitions, the broader cultural production of curating is obscured. What requires examination instead is the positioning of exhibitions within institutional trajectories, the coherence of sustained production, and the capacity of curatorial practice to generate new paradigms or productive tensions within gallery institutions.

Historically, curatorial roles within galleries were often subsumed under the figure of the gallery owner. Today, however, market pressures have catalyzed organizational differentiation, a development that remains largely unexamined. Operating simultaneously as a gallery curator and an independent curator, I often find myself caught between institutional co-construction and the critical autonomy of curatorial practice. Navigating this tension requires constant negotiation and balance. Curatorial thinking must maintain its critical edge while extending itself through institutional cultural production. This condition may represent one of the mutations of contemporary curating—and a practice that is still waiting to be examined.