Curators and the Zeitgeist: Simon Castets and Courtney J. Martin

0:04Welcome to Chanel Connects, the Venice Biennale edition. It's important to be free So who was the fool who didn't recognize it all that time ago? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it is seduction, oh absolutely Just another woman trying to survive So who of them is lying? I wish that were the case Well let's face the terror of the new work then And this is what art is so good at I don't, do you prepare? No, no, no In this season of Chanel Connects we've taken up residence in Italy to go to the center of the art world. Listen in to the artists, curators, thinkers, and makers behind the Venice Biennale, the world's most important exhibition of contemporary art, now in its 60th edition.

0:49Each of our guests is focused on what matters most and what happens next. I'm Yana Peele, Global Head of Arts and Culture at Chanel. Thank you for connecting with us. Could you tell where my head was at when you found me?

1:10Prominent curator and art historian Hans-Lrich Oberst has told me that curating is about creating junctions and connections. It's about making the invisible visible and facilitating encounters between artworks, artists and audiences. What does it mean to curate? In this episode, we are joined by Simone Castell, co-founder of the 89 Plus Project, and Courtney Martin, executive director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Our moderator, Penny Martin, spoke to Courtney and Simon in Venice's Conservatorio de Musica. You might well hear some opera in the background. Enjoy.

1:56What is it that brings you to the Biennale here in 2024? A sense of curiosity about what will happen this year. I never missed a year since I started coming. And so this year, I think I am curious about what will happen. This is the first time that a curator has been drawn from Latin America. I would say like Courtney. I've never missed a Biennale since I've started coming. I came in 2001 for the first time when I was 17 and it really knocked my socks off. I would say I had no idea that contemporary art was even a thing. Mind you, it was before Google was something that people would use on a regular basis.

2:37So I had no idea it even existed. I just saw billboards around Venice that said it was the Venice Biennale. And I thought, what is that? And I remember going with my younger sister and we're, you know, completely ecstatic about what we're saying. So I guess in a way I'm chasing that feeling of first discovery. That's my first Biennale as well. Oh my God. It was, yeah. And that's when we met. I wish that were the case. So at 17, what effect did that have on you? Was that when you knew this was what you wanted to do? I think it helped precipitate the movement. Give us a standout memory from that one year then, if that's what you share.

3:19This is the thing, this is not a memory of the Biennale. It's the memory of what happens after the Biennale that are in fact unrelated, but it helped. Later in that year, because I'd come in the spring for the opening, and later in that year, of course, is the tragedy of 9-11. And I remember going back in my mind to all of the pictures and posters and all of the happiness and excitement that I had felt that spring after things were a bit challenging in the fall. And so I always think of that Biennale as being, you know, something that provided just this great sense of respite for me in a challenging time.

3:56For our listeners who may not know, we're interested to reach a definition. Could you decide together what it is that you think a curator is? There's the practical piece. you work for an institution or you don't work for an institution and you are on your own you manage a collection or you are perfectly free of that as a responsibility you have a sense of deep organizational skills but you are also wildly creative at exactly the same time and those two things I think are actually quite hard to find in a person to feel as if you understand how to pull together a big free form idea that you're having by yourself perhaps so that other people can see it.

4:42There are curators who never work with living artists. There are curators who only work with living artists. So there's a way in which there's a binary of experience between being sort of wholly stayed and wildly free. But you have to do both of those things simultaneously in order, I think, to be a curator. I fully agree with what Courtney said and about this duality. And I think both of us are very lucky that we have this experience of shared vulnerability in a way that you can have with an artist, a living artist, whose work you're trying to present in the best possible way at that stage of their career in a certain context.

5:25And I would say there's even as many ways to curate as there are artists who work. But most importantly, I would say maybe the definition, I think the role is to accompany the artist and to be in the background and make sure that things are at the best of their possibility. That is absolutely true. I believe you've known each other for more than a decade. Can you tell us the story of how that came about? You have to tell it. Wait, I'm blanking. Oh, yes, that's true. Okay, that's true. Back in 2013, I co-founded a project with Hans-Rick Obrist that was called 89 Plus, that was somehow charting the new world of possibilities that artists born in 89 and after globally were creating.

6:20Long story short, by doing this work, we came across hundreds, if not thousands, of practitioners around the world. And Courtney, at the time, was teaching, and all of her students loved her, and especially because she gave her students the opportunity to invite people to talk at Brown. And somehow, a group of students asked to invite me to talk. I would add to Simone's story. I asked my students because I felt that I was teaching from my own space of experience. And I was supposed to be teaching contemporary art, but I am trained as a modernist. And so I taught the modern art and modernist principles so that we could get to the contemporary.

7:05And so then I felt that their job was to bring the contemporary and that we then would all talk about it. And so they brought forth Simone as someone that they felt was doing incredible work. And they were so persuasive about why the work was important to them. And so when I met Simone, I could see it immediately. You mentioned there are as many curators or genres of curator as there are artists practically. But can we ask you to at least paint us a picture of a day in the life? of your curatorial practice? It depends on where I am. And the day is rarely ever about the individual show. So there are exhibitions that I've curated that I continue to think about and to think about how they developed.

7:50So this morning, I spent a lot of time while seeing the de Kooning show, thinking about what I should have done differently in my Robert Ryman show. And that show was almost a decade ago. What was the answer? I might have been more interested in three-dimensionality at that moment than I recognized. It was a painting show, but there were some three-dimensional objects, but I might have enhanced them more. I might have brought them out more because I think that was crucial to his practice. So is that one of the elements of coming to the biennale, that you're always in conversation with your own practice as per what your peers have staged?

8:27Oh, absolutely. And you're also in, you're in conversation with, you're in conversation with every other show that you've ever seen here. And with all of the sort of excitement around it, I think, including performances that, you know, rarely ever happen again. And for you, Simone? I would say, you know, from the perspective of working with an institution, one of the most exciting things I would say from the work we do is that you have such a wide array of people with whom you correspond on a daily basis. So you're going to have, you know, six meetings with people who are, you know, either it's a conservator or it's an artist who you're going to go see in their studio.

9:12Or you're going to have a Zoom meeting with another curator in another institution on the other side of the planet. So you are constantly exposed to a vast array of perspectives that is incredibly enriching. And, you know, back in 2001, you necessarily are going to have a much more Eurocentric perspective. The biennial we are going to go and see this year is widely different. And part of this is due to the fact that information travels much faster and there are no geographical bounds to knowledge anymore to some extent. It's true. I'm very struck that this conversation isn't about authorship then.

9:54It's not about you in a silo and your own kind of auteurship then. It seems as if it's very collegial and you're very aware of your peers. Oh, completely. And I think we get the title of curator, but in reality I have never worked on a show by myself before, ever. There is, you know, there's the conservator, there is the head of installation, there is the registrar, you know, the person that is your lifeline to getting the object to you. And you are in this constant conversation with all of those people to make this singular thing happen. If one of you emerges as a soul voice, it is only for the moment that your expertise is needed and then immediately dissolves into the next moment when somebody else, you know, we need this question answered.

10:40You step forward and you answer the question and then you go back to the collective. You're never alone in that space. what's very striking about what you're saying is how profound and how long-standing your relationship with an artist can be i mean it can sometimes occupy your whole life so you have to be quite careful what what do you think it is that you draw draws you to an artist it's a big commitment isn't it potentially it's a huge commitment and i think when you are the way i think courtney and i are we're very loyal people when it comes to friendships and so So you will go to the ends of the earth to go to your friends opening.

11:18And as your career evolves, then you have more and more and more and more of those. So it becomes overwhelming. But it's worth every bit of it. I would say there are artists I've known now for 20 years. There are people I've been lucky enough to grow up with. And seeing them succeed today is incredibly rewarding. And that when you've been able to play even a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny role in their success, Could you each give an example of somebody that you've worked for a long time with to stage an exhibit and how that kind of feeds into your life? I first saw Rashid Areen's work, who is a Pakistani British artist.

11:59And I saw him on the first Friday of my first year at university. And I have been thinking about that work all the way through. And I will hopefully realize a major project that he developed in the 1960s for the Yale Center for British Art this fall, which is a project to both have public and private interact with each other over food by way of something called the shamayana, which is an Islamic wedding tradition where you invite community in to celebrate the marriage. not in this sort of sense of, you know, these are the relatives, these are the family, but in fact, everybody gets to come and benefit from the joy that's happening.

12:44And I would say that I've known about that project as a drawing, as his idea, and the idea that I would get to be a part of its activation all these years later is astounding to me. And that I've talked to him along the way has just been, you know, frankly, a benefit to me. Simone? The example that comes to mind is based on friendship, in fact. I think that's, you know, as I was mentioning that before, growing up with people, an artist whom I've been very happy to be able to work is Jeremy Shaw, who's an artist based in Berlin. We met probably 15 years ago by chance, and he's just a friend of mine.

13:28And maybe five years ago, when I was running Swiss Institute, We partnered with the Saint-Pompidou in Paris to do his first major monograph in France and the US. It turns out because of COVID, we were not able to make it happen at Swiss Institute. So the catalog we jointly published is only for the Pompidou show. But that was still a wonderful opportunity to be able to accompany people at different stages of their life with the intimate knowledge of what their personality is and knowing how this could translate in the best possible way in an exhibition format, even if that exhibition never ends up happening.

14:08It's true. I'm interested to know what you felt when you first heard Pedrosa's theme for this year at the Biennale of Foreigners Everywhere. Camus, you know, that sense of the idea, because as soon as I heard foreigner, I think maybe just from my own national context it became Stranger and I thought this is interesting because this is the largest number of artists that have ever been included and that's a big feat because so there are 331 in this presentation Cicilia Almani's presentation had 213 and Zaymon's 2001 had I believe almost 200 standard. And so to look at that, and I have to say, I thought that was overwhelming at the time, but I had nothing to gauge it by.

14:59And so I wonder, you know, what will this mean to actually to cast such a big, you know, population, you know, will we look at these people going forward as a class at some point? Will they come together as a group for us? And for you, Simone? When I heard about it, I thought, great. Because I think for us curators going to biennial is the most exciting when the less you know people on the list, the more interesting it's going to be for you as a curator. And I think for an audience, a general audience, it can be true as well, because you're going to have positions that are forgotten or less easy to absorb.

15:42And that will provide food for thought for probably longer than a smaller list with much better known names. That's true. It's a huge responsibility, that job. How alluring is that top position of Biennale curator for you? We could do it together. Together. We would do it together. I would do it with you. Stronger together. Yes. I would absolutely, you know what? I'm not even being funny about this. I would absolutely curate anything with you. You should shake on that, shall we? Let's. It happened here. A deal was done here. No, it's hard to answer. I think it must be a doubting experience for whoever is bestowed the honor of curating the international exhibition of the Venice Biennale because you're going to be the subject of so much scrutiny and there is no way to win.

16:39Every person who curate the Venice Biennale is sort of vilified for about two weeks. It's true. And glorified for the years after. For the years after. Because everybody will inevitably say it was much better two years ago. So once you've heard that theme, what do you do then? How much preparation do you both do before you arrive? What do you read? Which critics are you interested in? Do you prepare? No. No, no, none, not at all. And in fact, I wouldn't read. I wouldn't, yeah, no, God, no. No, no, you just, you want to be ready to absorb. somehow as a blank slate. Even if you knew all of the artists participating, you want to have this surprise.

17:27Absolutely. Of course, there are awards, the Lions. How important are they to you? I think they're more important in retrospect, in a way. Not to take away from the artists who receive them. It's obviously a great honour, but it's interesting to see the shifts that happen based on how those are awarded. And they always signal something very strong. And then you have, I was reading that you had a short period of time during which it was considered utterly bourgeois to have prizes for the Venezuelan Alley. So they were suspended for a period of time after 1968. The year that Bridget Riley wins. Was it the year she won?

18:09She won in 68. And so that's, and you're right. And there is this kind of sense of, I think the counterculture had moved into art in that sense. And people weren't interested. And what did the prize mean? There's going to be so many people listening to this, being excited by what you do and interested in the possibilities. What would you say is the best advice you can give to a budding curator? Go everywhere. See everything. And listen to what the artists have to say. Yes. It's the most important thing. Don't listen too much to the others. No, don't listen to anything. Presumably, you have no time for escape.

18:53But in the city of Venice, what are the food destinations and the locations and the shops that you can only see here that you wouldn't miss? I always try to go to Museo Correre for the unbelievable collection. And sometimes, you know, because we work in the contemporary art world, history hasn't done its brutal edit. When you look at contemporary art, there's a lot that's going to be interesting in the moment, maybe not forever. And in any case, it is hugely overwhelming going back to the roots of what you love, going back to seeing art from five centuries ago is a way to reconnect very much to why you do what you do.

19:41I completely agree. I got off the train yesterday and I dropped off my bags and I went immediately to the academia to see Bellini and Titian and Tiepolo. And then I felt that I could move forward. But I heard that you also make time for sepi compilenta. Is that not true? I do. And I am at a deficit right now because usually I eat it as the first meal that I arrive and continue doing so until the end, the very end, the bitter end. There is one question that we are asking every participant in Chanel Connects, and it is, what excites you most about the future of art? the ability to reclaim a space against the world.

20:26Yeah. I think I grew up with an idea that artists were magicians. And I think that comes out of a very specific time. But I think I've come into an idea that artists are statespeople. And so, you know, even my own ability to move throughout the world has largely been enabled by art. And so I hope that people can embrace a sense of that because artists give us a lot of innovation in ways that many other fields just don't have the ability to do that. Well, let's look forward to that. Thank you very much, Simone and Courtney. Thank you very much. Thank you to Simone and Courtney. As Simone and Courtney shared, their first time visiting the Venice Biennale has very much stayed with them in profound ways.

21:11We wanted to know from our Venice Biennale attendees this year about the first time they came to Venice. I believe mine was 1999 when Harold Zeman was the curator. My first ever time in Venice was maybe 20 years ago. I came in November and it was a very great day. And there was like mist everywhere. And I was very happy to finally see the city. I went to Venice for the first time with my dear friend who is an exceptional curator. and it was an amazing opportunity to realize that everybody is a different type of art viewer. And I went in with an agenda to see every single thing. But my first time I went, I went as if it was the only time I would ever get to go.

21:58And I ran, I ran around like a headless chicken. I was alone and afraid and much younger than I am now. I might have had three ice cream cones worth of chocolate gelato and no other food and may have not found my way back and may have crawled to the steps of the Daniele and asked for my mentor's room key to go up and sleep in her room because I literally couldn't find my way back home because I didn't have a cell phone because it was for the internet. So I came here for the first time when I was a teenager, when I was trying to kind of figure out what I was going to do at university and therefore with my life.

22:38And I kind of didn't have a clear sense. And then one night I went to the Academia Gallery, which used to be open late on a Wednesday. And I happened to be there in almost the final gallery, which is that amazing narrative cycle around the life of St. Ursula by Carpaccio. and I was sat there by myself with my rough guide and entranced by these paintings and reading about how Ruskin, John Ruskin, the 19th century critic, had felt the same. And I had this kind of epiphany, which is I want to do art history. So I owe Venice a huge amount. Thank you so much to all of our contributors who joined us in Venice for the 60th edition of the Biennale.

23:15Thank you for listening to Chanel Connects, the Venice Biennale edition. Now the number five is very important in the house of Chanel. so please consider giving us five stars on whatever platform you're listening to us. Please follow the show so you don't miss an episode. Listen to more from the Chanel Connects archives. One of my favorites is the episode with Frida Escobedo and Jose Esparza-Chonkui on the connection between architecture and art. You can find them and all previous episodes at chanel.com. Next time on Chanel Connects, Icelandic artist Hilde Gunnar Birgisdottir and Hong Kong's Trevor Young explore the relationship between humankind and the natural world and how they make sense of the unknown.

24:03I don't even know the things the future will provide, but oh my God, when I see something that I have no understanding of, it's like, yes, thank you. And this is what art is so good at. I cannot agree more. It's not to be missed. See you next week.