https://theartpressasia.com/2020/09/13/to-curating-an-exhibition-how-many-of-these-challenges-are-you-facing-4-issue-from-hsu-fong-ray-the-consultant-of-taiwan-annual/

If you have ever considered becoming a curator, or if you are already engaged in curatorial practice, have you ever asked yourself how curators in Taiwan should begin, and how this profession can be deepened and refined over time?

“I think this is a relative perspective. I would probably remove the word young altogether,” says HSU Fong-Ray at the very beginning of the interview.

“Because many times, it is not necessarily the case that more experienced curators perform better than those with relatively less experience. Curators with less experience sometimes see issues that senior curators overlook. Of course, the learning component is greater in such situations.”

At the annual Taiwan Annual, independent curator HSU Fong-Ray and Zoe Chia-Jung Yeh, curator of Hong-Gah Museum, were invited to serve as capacity-building advisors. The organiser, Association of the Visual Arts in Taiwan (AVAT), sought to make use of the process of organising Taiwan Annual to simultaneously carry out a “One-Year Capacity-Building Curator” project, creating opportunities for selected curators to engage in professional exchange with curators from across the art field. At this moment, ART PRESS also presents a series of interviews, attempting to discuss the matter of curating together with the art community.

1. Must a Curator Working in a Gallery Compromise and Accept Limitations?

When speaking about this, HSU Fong-Ray recalls a curator he once worked with at Tina Keng Gallery and TKG+, whom he considers a highly promising curator for the future: Han-Fang Wang. He chooses to share her experience as a reference.

“She and I were working at Tina Keng Gallery and TKG+ around 2014. Compared with alternative spaces or art collectives, gallery exhibitions are often produced through delegation. That is, the person in charge does not need to insert too much personal opinion—one simply follows the artist’s needs and does everything possible to complete the work, and that is already considered a good outcome.”

“For me, this was extremely strange,” HSU Fong-Ray says.
“Exhibition production is not only this.”

He does not shy away from admitting that, as someone who brought curatorial methodologies into the gallery at the time, this indeed created considerable impact on the existing organisational culture and its members—and was even perceived as a form of “threat.” Yet in HSU Fong-Ray’s memory, Han-Fang Wang appeared almost as an anomaly.

“She kept questioning and reflecting on the effects this approach had on the organisation internally, and on the potential problems it might generate. I clearly remember her saying, ‘So it turns out we can do exhibitions like this.’”

2. “Curating” Has Become an Increasingly Common Term—But What Is It, Exactly?

Is curating simply the act of planning exhibitions? And where would any so-called standard for doing curating well be located?

“For me,” HSU Fong-Ray says,
“the standards and qualifications for curating disappeared the moment Duchamp took the urinal out—together with the question of whether everyone can be an artist. I tend to divide this issue into two parts: first, understanding contemporary art; second, thinking about what an exhibition can be.”

As art has developed to the present, discussions around what “contemporary art” means often require considerable debate, even for audiences who love art. For HSU Fong-Ray, however, contemporary art does not simply refer to a form or a movement.

“It is not a negation of past forms, nor is it a new form. It is closer to an exploration of artistic philosophy and value—how to use it to examine and reflect upon the problems encountered in artistic production, whether in art history, shifts in aesthetics, the art economy, or the relationship between museums and society.”

“It possesses a kind of freedom that has never existed before,” HSU Fong-Ray says.

He further notes that, in discussions of contemporary curating, scholars such as Lu Pei-Yi and Manray HSU have both pointed out that translating curating as “curating (策展)” in Chinese may not be entirely accurate. Because of this translation issue, curators in Chinese-language contexts are often misunderstood as “people who make exhibitions,” “people who know how to write curatorial statements,” or “people who possess resource networks.” This misunderstanding is closely related to the overproduction of exhibitions.

“For this reason,” HSU Fong-Ray explains, “when discussing what curating is, I would rather shift the question toward what an exhibition can be.”

What, Then, Is an Exhibition?

For those who enjoy visiting exhibitions in their spare time and love art, have you ever asked yourself what an exhibition actually is?

“An exhibition is a form of visual presentation of art. Its content may involve art, history, nature, politics, or popular culture. Whether it is the display of artefacts or the ineffable sensorial experiences refined by artists, the result is always a presentation staged in space.”

Unlike film or theatre, exhibitions are silent. For HSU Fong-Ray, the question is how these silent works and curatorial ideas carry thought—and how these silent thoughts ultimately reach the viewer’s mind, or even their inner consciousness.

“As a mode of presentation, objects that cannot speak will of course not respond. But for people living in the present—especially artists living in the present—how thought is presented here is already a dynamic process of production. This is true for artists, and naturally, it is also true for curators.”

“If an exhibition is treated merely as a form or an expression, and visual display is taken as the outcome of curating, then its full scope may not be understood.”

“Curating’s primary work lies precisely in this dynamic process—thinking, reflecting, and challenging one’s contemporaries together with institutions, artists, and all those involved in exhibition production, while connecting each distinct line of thought and weaving them into an artistic image that reflects contemporary life and thinking.”

3. The Three Most Important Things in Curating—and What Should Be Avoided

“Curiosity,” “attending to others,” and “self-critique,” HSU Fong-Ray responds.

“I would not recommend defining what must be avoided. To some extent, that becomes a form of restriction or regulation. Curating, like artistic creation, requires experimentation and lived experience. Even when the same event occurs, it may carry entirely different meanings and impacts for you and for me. I do not think there is a need to deliberately avoid experiences that might turn out to be wonderful—or utterly disastrous.”

4. Is Curating the Same as Critique?

“If that were the condition for identification, then there would be no need to rack our brains over what curating is,” HSU Fong-Ray says.

He continues by extending a statement he made previously in a curatorial feature:
“Perhaps what we should discuss is not the independent curator, but the independence of curating. Curators and artists, due to their differing needs for resources, develop different forms of practice. An artist’s practice must confront freedom directly—it is a demand made of the self; a curator’s practice, by contrast, is a negotiation with unfreedom, a tug-of-war with institutions and economic resources.”

For many people, understanding a curator often takes place through the exhibitions they present. HSU Fong-Ray reminds us that this is not the only path. For a curator, exhibitions are a relatively visible entry point, but lectures, writing, and workshops are also part of curatorial practice.

“Contemporary curating was born together with critical theory. A curator should not be identified only through exhibitions. It also includes talks, writing, and workshops. These forms correspond to the persistent question of what curators need to know and be able to do—it is difficult to fix curating into a single, proprietary form, even if its most visible site is the exhibition.”

“So if I must put it this way,” HSU Fong-Ray adds, “I would position the curator’s critical role closer to that of a public intellectual.”

“In contemporary life, a curator’s creative labour often lies in dealing with the situations art encounters when it touches society, institutions, and audiences. Compared to artists, curators are more worldly in how they handle questions of artistic presentation, while remaining highly self-aware that they themselves are also part of the overall structure.”

5. What Skills Does a Curator Need? Is There an Objective Standard of “Good” Curating?

“When people ask what curators need to know or be able to do, I find it very difficult to summarise,” HSU Fong-Ray says.

“The abilities required are extremely broad and unevenly distributed. A curator needs academic research skills as well as practical exhibition-making experience. You need an understanding of creation comparable to that of artists, organisational and integrative coordination skills, and even a sharp psychological sensitivity. All of these elements further branch out depending on the collaborating institution, the working context, and the nature of the exhibition.”

In an era where exhibitions appear everywhere—from consumer products and fashion brands to cultural parks and commercial showcases—what does this abundance of exhibitions mean?

“I think a good exhibition is one that can offer people living in the present a moment of pause—across visual sensibility, knowledge production, and mediation. Whether it leads to further thinking, feeling, or understanding of a world that both mirrors and diverges from everyday life, it must possess a sense of publicness within its display.”

About the Interviewee

HSU Fong-Ray is an independent curator known for dissecting the absurdities of structural systems and examining relationships of cultural production through critical curatorial practice. He has served as a board member of Taipei Contemporary Art Center, curator of TKG+, and manager of Tina Keng Gallery. He is currently the director of the art collective Guerrilla Station, and works as an independent curator and institutional consultant. His articles and criticism have appeared across major art media.

“In the history of exhibitions,” HSU Fong-Ray concludes,
“exhibitions have served as political propaganda, as prescriptions for urban renewal, as challenges to salons and museums, and today may appear as consumer-oriented special exhibitions within cultural parks. Like the world itself, exhibitions continue to change. Yet maintaining clear insight amid these waves is a value that exhibitions in every era must uphold.”