Is the role of the curator evolving?

Increasingly, the curatorial role is focused on audience engagement and collaboration, rather than specialized knowledge. • There has been a lot of chatter in recent years about the “death of the curator.” But is the role of the curator really dead, or is it just evolving? Once a position that glorified specialized knowledge on niche-like topics, this role is expanding, becoming user-friendly and reaching beyond the walls of institutions. It has grown well beyond the selection and placement of art or artifacts in a space; it has equally become about empowering the audience, collaboration, and innovation, both in a physical space and in the virtual world.   Why is the role of curator changing? There are many factors that have influenced this change in recent years – an emphasis on education in museums and the arts, advances in technology, racial demographic changes, the coming-of-age of the millennial generation – to name a few. Today’s curator is more like a television producer than an academic scholar – they need to capture the attention of the audience through entertainment and engagement. (Think live tweeting during a TV show and customized iPad apps). While being knowledgeable of the subject matter is important for the integrity of the arts, it’s only one slice of the pie for today’s curators. Read the full article > Photo Credit: BMW Guggenheim Lab via Compfight c