The Norwegian Association of Curators was has been given funding by the Arts Council Norway to explore the role of the curator through a series of talks/lectures. The series aims to explore different typologies of curatorial practice and to link the visit to relevant art events in place the talk takes place in Norway.
The lecture series has been compiled by Milena Hoegsberg, Natalie Hope O’Donnell and Leif Magne Tangen.
Tirdad Zolghadr’s lecture is the fifth lecture in a series on different typologies of curatorial practice. In his presentation, Tirdad Zolghadr will address persistent calls for an “exit” from contemporary art. He argues that such calls are linked to a moral economy of indeterminacy that now defines the field. It is this moral economy that fuels two fundamentally different types of exit rhetoric. For some, indeterminacy allows for a cozy, melancholic sense of “tristesse royale”, as it ultimately views exit as an unattainable horizon. Among others, a growing impatience with the moral economy of indeterminacy has kindled an appetite for a paradigm shift that is both radical and realistic. Though not exactly a radicalist, Zolghadr likes to side with the latter group, and will argue his case with a small number of examples from recent curatorial practice.