"As our understanding of the realm of contemporary art activities broadens and expands, so do our perceptions of the roles we play within it. Within an expanding field in which researching, archiving, performing, questioning, gathering and conversing, and exchanging knowledge make up as much of the art world as do producing and displaying and exposing - we need to rethink the categories by which we work. As part of this investigation we have been thinking about the shift from 'Curating' - a professional practice of gathering, displaying and cataloguing (mostly) works of art - to the 'Curatorial' - the conscious and unconscious work by both curator and public that goes into setting up the exhibition as an 'event of knowledge'. How do we understand such an event? Who takes part in it? What is ephemeral and what is lasting about such occurrences? How do they interact with more traditional modes of knowledge production? And how do they work to redefine the world of contemporary art? These are the issues that this presentation will attempt to deal with."
Irit Rogoff is a writer, curator, and organizer working at the intersection of contemporary art, critical theory, and emergent political manifestations. She is Professor of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, London University where she heads the PhD in Curatorial/Knowledge programme, the MA in Global Arts programme, and the new Geo-Cultures Research Centre. Rogoff has written extensively on geography, globalization, and contemporary participatory practices in the expanded field of art. A collection of recent essays, Unbounded—Limits’ Possibilities, was published in 2012 with e-flux journal/ Sternberg and her new book, Looking Away—Participating Singularities, Ontological Communities, comes out in 2013. Rogoff lives and works in London.