One of the continuing problems creating such academic idiocy as the promotion of Feeble Painting and the likes of Kilimnik lies in the usurpation of the role of the artist by curators, especially of the "independent" and "international" variety. I wrote about this on Sharkforum long ago in the post "Artworld Pyramid Shift."
J. J. Charlesworth has written a scholarly article about this problem, one bearing very much on our Kilimnik and Feeble Painting, Neo-Conceptual Art debates. Charlesworth is the exhibitions curator at the Herbert Read Gallery, University College for the Creative Arts in Canterbury, thus he has a very direct experience of the ills now besetting his profession. Additionally, he has a very uncommon analytic and ethical clarity about them.
Some excerpts:
"If the term 'curator' has been around for as long as there were bodies of objects and bodies of knowledge to preserve and perpetuate, its more active derivative 'curating' is a neologism so recent that dictionaries have not yet caught up."
"Curators continue to exist and perform the task of curating, yet judging by the recurring and often circular discussions about the nature of curating, the identity of the 'artist-curator', the role of the independent curator, and the politics of 'self-reflexive' curating, all exist in a state of ongoing perennial uncertainty, in which fundamental questions are rehearsed, mantra-like: where does the distinction lie between artist and curator?"
"As Paul O'Neill ironically observed ... '[we] are becoming so self-reflexive that exhibitions often end up as nothing more or less than art exhibitions curated by curators curating curators, curating artists, curating artworks, curating exhibitions.' "
"Such examples go against the tendency of consensus and deferral that underpins the culture of curatorial uncertainty."
"If curating is to be more than a narcissistic display of an uncertain 'me, me, me', caught between wielding power over the presentation of art and the desire to produce it, a less self-reflexive discussion about institutional power, cultural freedom and artistic value is necessary."
Originally presented in the magazine Art Monthly, it is now featured on encyclopedia.com. Go read the clear-sighted critical assessment in its entirety:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-159863693.html
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