***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 18:16:02 PST
   [From]: "Raul Ferrera-Balanquet" <ferrera98@hotmail.com>
     [To]: forum1@hkw.kbx.de
[Subject]: Re: [forum1] Curators, and interpreting art

Hola Britta:

I am glad you have voiced your opinions about curating.  Hope that the 
criticism that you get will be constructive and will move our dialogue. 
Otherwise, don't let it get to you.

I am agree with you about the good and the bad artists and curators.

What fascinates me about "good curators" is their ability to see the  
subtextual conections among works from different cultures and artists. A few 
years ago, we resisted the idea of having people from outside our cultures 
representing or dictating what our art was about. That is always a catch 22. 
There are art historians and curators, humble art historians and curators, 
who have studied and lived in other cultures, and even though they are an 
"authority" in their subject, when they speak about the "other" culture, 
they never position themselves above it. To me, those are the curators whose 
work is about exchange of knowledge, and the ones I respect.
The late British Film and Video curator Mark Finch, who was the director of 
the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival is one of them. 
Although, there were many discussion about issues of race, identity and 
culture, Mark always created a space for discussion and never in the time I 
participated in the festival, positioned as an authority. And, he made sure 
that our work was represented in their collection. In my conversations with 
him, I realized that he was aware of his privileged position. In many cases, 
he curated the work of queer media makers of color with the so called 
"white" or European. He was able to see beyond the surface and understood 
the way in which those works communicated among themselves.

I can not question that you know more about Chinese Art than the average 
Chinese.

Are you aware that in the process of translation a new interpretation takes 
place? How do you negotiate with your translations when you know that 
socio-linguistic and cultural referents could be misunderstood and lost in 
that process? How can you tell your English speaking audience that what they 
are seeing is your perspective?
When you make the translations do you speak about the object, or the context 
in which the object was created, or the history circumscribing the object, 
or the sico-emotional experiences of the producer of he object? Are these 
issues part of your work?

I live with that problem too. I grew up in Cuba,  became educated in the 
States, living right now in Mexico, a country so close to me, yet so 
different. Even though, I know some stuff about Mexican Culture, there are 
art practices, real one taking places everyday as ritual social 
performances, which still, I have not a clue about what they mean.

Can we really say that we know, when in fact, never in our life time we will 
be able to acquired all the knowledge that there is in this earth?

You deserve the right to speak about Chinese art. You love it. I could sense 
in your written speech. What it should be questioned is the position from 
where you speak about Chinese art. I mean, if I have a clear understanding 
that you relationship with Chinese art is at the same plane, then I have no 
problem with you writing about Chinese.

Friend, I do believe that there some women who know more about women art 
than a lot of men(Yo soy one of them). Even though, I have been in a lot of 
workshops about power and women issues, what I have learned was to be able 
to look inside and work on my shit, never to become an authority on women 
issues. Although, I understand some of these issues, I learned that when I 
am in the company of women,  I should not mark the space with my male voice 
or gestures. I need to understand the rhythms of the conversation and 
contribute when the organic dynamic of the conversation creates a space form 
my "male" discourse. In that case, I can understand what the Chinese critic 
was articulating. But that does not negate my right to speak when I am with 
women or yours to write about Chinese art. It is a complex situation that 
needs to be re-evaluated constantly.

And regarding to the audience's reading. You are totally right. Although, if 
we do a semiotic analysis of the audience interpretation of art from "other" 
cultures, we will find out that there references to the work of art, 
sometimes, are related to misinterpretations and colonial fantasies.


Thank you for sharing, you should write more about this. These issues are 
important, specially when we are being "colonized" by globalization.



Raul Ferrera-Balanquet, MFA
Interdisciplinary Artist and Scholar
ferrera98@hotmail.com
http://www.artswire.org/krosrods/curriculum/index.html