Curate award: a search for curatorial talent by QMA and Fondazione Prada
Watch the Curate award's video call out for entries
In the olden days, if you wanted to be cool and impress your friends, you started playing records in public and called yourself a DJ. Now you create a website, or even hire a physical space, and call yourself a 'curator'. Others simply rebrand themselves and insist they've been curators all along. Indeed, social media means we can all be curators now. Anything and everything is Pinteresting.
The Curate award, a joint initiative from the Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) and the Prada Foundation, at once seeks to encourage this urge, if encouragement were needed, and reward those with a genuinely fresh and forward-looking take on curatorial practice.
The competition, launched today, is open to everyone and the winner will get to curate their own show next year in either Qatar or Italy. The extremely heavyweight judging panel includes chair of the QMA, Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad Al-Thani; Miuccia Prada; Rem Koolhaas; Lebanese film-maker and actress Nadine Labaki; Nawal El Moutawakel, the first woman from a Muslim majority country to win an Olympic gold medal; and super curator and co-director of the Serpentine Gallery in London, Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Aspiring curators can upload a video outlining their proposal on to the Curate website as of today. The jury - who say they will 'judge ideas on their creativity and social significance ' - will winnow the entries down to the wheatiest 20 which will then be showcased on the site. The public can then enter the selection process, picking their favourite entry. A winner will be announced next Spring.
In a collective statement the judging panel said: 'The notion of "curating" no longer belongs just to the museum. With the development of digital and social media, it has now become possible for anyone to participate in the selection, editing and communication of ideas. We hope that people, whatever their age or background, will make the most of the opportunity offered by Curate to think about the future potential of exhibition making, where there are no imposed boundaries to media, scale, content and formats, and ideas, whether from the fields of science or the arts, can come from anywhere.'
The Curate award also aims to trigger a dialogue about the ingredients of a truly inspiring exhibition. The question has already been put to leading figures in the art world, such as Takashi Murakami. 'For me, an inspiring exhibition is one like Paul Schimmel's Helter Skelter,' says the Japanese artist. 'It introduces new artists while also challenging the audience's view of not only art but society in general, and possesses the revolutionary energy to change the structure of the art world itself.' Meanwhile, Iraqi artist Dia Azzawi picked out a rather unusual contender for the best show he has ever witnessed. 'My choice as the most inspiring ever was a sculpture exhibition for the blind,' he says. 'It was held at the Tate in the mid seventies under the supervision of Henry Moore.'
Check back here soon to hear more from the judges about the art of curation and to see some of the fruits of the global search. Plus tell us about the best exhibition you have ever witnessed on Twitter, using the hashtag #OperationCurate.
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
-
‘100R’ by Hydro invites top designers to work in revolutionary recycled aluminium
Hydro’s ‘100R’ exhibition at Milan Design Week 2024 matches designers including Inga Sempé and Max Lamb with Hydro CIRCAL 100R, the first industrial-scale aluminium material made entirely of post-consumer scrap
By Simon Mills Published
-
Grand Palais restoration in Paris through the lens of champion fencer Enzo Lefort
As Paris’ Grand Palais prepares to reopen following extensive restoration by Chatillon Architectes, we visit the site with champion fencer and photographer Enzo Lefort, who documented the space ahead of the Olympic Games 2024
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Lap-See Lam’s giant dragon head and tail takes over the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale
Lap-See Lam takes over The Nordic Pavilion with a giant dragon head and tail, while her dynamically composed ‘Altersea Opera’ considers language and representation
By Emily Steer Published
-
Miranda July considers fantasy and performance at Fondazione Prada
‘Miranda July: New Society’ at Fondazione Prada, Milan, charts 30 years of the artist's career
By Mary Cleary Published
-
Juergen Teller’s ‘i need to live’ explores beauty and fragility at Triennale Milano
Juergen Teller’s ‘i need to live’ is on show at Triennale Milano, following its Paris debut, and spans shots of Yves Saint Laurent and Björk, as well as quirky self-portraits
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Triennale Milano exhibition spotlights contemporary Italian art
The latest Triennale Milano exhibition, ‘Italian Painting Today’, is a showcase of artworks from the last three years
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Walls, Windows and Blood: Catherine Opie in Naples
Catherine Opie's new exhibition ‘Walls, Windows and Blood’ is now on view at Thomas Dane Gallery, Naples
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Fondazione Prada exhibition is an ode to a vanishing Venice
At Fondazione Prada’s 18th-century Venice palazzo, group exhibition ‘Everybody Talks About the Weather’ straddles beauty and fear and probes Venice’s precarious environmental future
By Will Jennings Published
-
Raffaele Salvoldi stacks hundreds of marble blocks for dazzling Milan installation
For a Milan Design Week 2023 installation, Italian artist Raffaele Salvoldi teams up with marble brand Salvatori to create architectural sculptures comprising hundreds of marble blocks
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
Ann Veronica Janssens wraps Milan's Pirelli HangarBicocca in light, mist and magic
A major survey of Ann Veronica Janssens’ work at Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan shines new light on the sensorially stimulating work of the Belgian artist
By Benoit Loiseau Published
-
Royal College of Physicians Museum presents its archives in a glowing new light
London photography exhibition ‘Unfamiliar’, at the Royal College of Physicians Museum (23 January – 28 July 2023), presents clinical tools as you’ve never seen them before
By Martha Elliott Published