Underskog

Installation view: Case Study: Art and the luxury goods market. Landings Project Space, Vestfossen, (2010).

What Can You Do with a Curatorial Degree?

After finishing my degree in curatorial studies I was faced with a few fundamental questions: How do I survive? How do I get to do the exhibitions I want to? And what are those exhibitions? There are several limitations affecting independent curators and those restrictions are often financial by nature, but producing exhibitions is also time and resource consuming, which again limits your output.

There’s no such thing as a small exhibition, even when budgets are small or even non-existent. Tonight’s lecture will discuss some of the choices I have made as an independent curator when I produce exhibitions for project spaces and artist run spaces. The exhibitions adopt the stance and values of these alternative spaces and challenge some of the presuppositions of what constitutes an art exhibition, what the role of the curator is, and focus on the exhibition as a medium and treats art history as a malleable material.

Geir Haraldseth (b. 1977 in Oslo, Norway) is a writer and independent curator based in Oslo. Haraldseth recently curated exhibitions at Akershus Kunstsenter, Lillestrøm, Landings Project Space, Vestfossen, and Johan Berggren Gallery, Malmö, and currently acts as editor for Landings Journal and is part of the editorial board at Kunstkritikk. Haraldseth has a BA from Central Saint Martins, London, UK and an MA in curatorial studies from Bard College, Annandale-on- Hudson, USA. Haraldseth has curated shows at Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo, Norway; Fotogalleriet, Oslo; Bastard, Oslo; Center for Curatorial Studies/Bard College; Landings, Vestfossen, Norway and Teatro de Arena, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Torpedo, Oslo. Haraldseth has contributed to a number of journals, including Acne Paper, Stockholm, Sweden and Billedkunst, Oslo, Kunstkritikk and Elle Mann, Oslo, and lectured at Art in General, New York, the 29th Sao Paulo Biennial, Sao Paulo, the University of Oslo, Valand School of Fine Art, Göteborg, and the Art Academy, also in Oslo.

Open Forum is a series of lectures, presentations, performances and conversations with artists, curators, theorists, authors, musicians etc. initiated and arranged by the Art Academy in Oslo. Open Forum usually take place every Monday at 19.00 in the Academy’s auditorium at Seilduken, Fossveien 24. Additional Open Forums might occur. The lectures are mainly executed in English and is ordinarily rounded up with questions and answers. The event is open for general public. Welcome!