Susan,

I do not personally work with this kind of situation often, but as a
response, I am trying to wrap my mind around this issue. I may be confused
by the curator/dealer/artist situation.

There are definitely ethical issues involved and reasons to be careful. It
is a potential conflict, but I do not think an inherent one.

I do not think the simple association of the artist and their dealer is any
reason to refuse their expertise in developing and interpreting that
artist's work. Care would have to be taken that the dealer does not use the
opportunity to aggrandize their other wares or promote their gallery. As
long as they stick to interpreting the work of the artist in question, it
sounds fine. Just like any other contract curator.

The dealer/potential curator probably knows the most about the artist and
the body of their work, making them the most qualified to do/create the
exhibition. There may be a prestige/value increase for the artist's work as
a result of the show being in several museums, but that would accrue to the
dealer whether he/she was the curator or not.

Curators do this sort of thing all the time for artists they know and
through galleries they have strong relationships with. This does not seem
significantly different, as long as it stays about the artist and not about
the gallery the curator/dealer runs.

One thing I can see becoming a criticism is that the dealer/potential
curator may not take the same intellectual/academic approach that a
professional curator might, thus the interpretation might be slanted in a
different direction. That might not be such a bad thing though.

List, please point out any issues I may not be considering.

Mark Janzen
Registrar/Collections Manager
Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art
Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection
Wichita State University
(316)978-5850



             Susan Hapgood
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                                       conflict of interest?

             02/10/2004 09:14
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We have a dilemma -- an artist and dealer have proposed a fabulous
traveling exhibition idea, but it would be a museum exhibition. Is the
dealer acting as curator such an obvious conflict of interest that we
should not even entertain the prospect? We have suggested that the
artist work with someone else, but the artist very badly wants to work
with only this one person, who is quite knowledgable on the subject,
which does fall into the purview of the dealer's gallery program too.

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