Art Insight #18:
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev

Q. In dOCUMENTA(13), which you curated in 2012, you talked about unfreezing positions through a framing of this vast exhibition as “an unfolding organism, like a vegetable bud. It comes from intuitions, then it forms an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge…” I think you visualized the theme well. Also it seems that the 14th Istanbul Biennial, <SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms> located a position similar to the dOCUMENTA(13). What is your view on this?

I believe that art and life are deeply related; therefore I believe that curatorial practice and organizing an exhibition need to be based on a vision that is organic and not on forms of categorization and rational thinking that systematize knowledge. There is a process of developing an artwork, and there is a process of developing an exhibition. The works on the exhibitions that I have made all reveal the process of that development. That process is very close to an organic one of any living organism. Yes, dOCUMENTA(13) unfolded like an ecosystem, and the Istanbul Biennial did the same.

Q. As a director of Galleria Civicad’ArteModerna, what is your view on institutions supported by corporations like Hyundai Motor? What can corporations do for art and institutions, and what can they get in return for their sponsorships?

I am the director of the Castello di Rivoli Museod’ArteContemporanea and the Galleria Civicad’ArteModerna. While the Castello di Rivoli is an original museum, a castle located outside Turin, the Galleria Civicad’ArteModerna(GAM) is downtown and it has a very large collection of historical works dated eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century. But GAM is less a contemporary art museum compared to Castello di Rivoli. I think that you need funding to run a museum, and I think that a balance between private and public funding is crucial. A museum that runs only on public funding can be very old-fashioned, bureaucratic, and slow. Museums that are funded only by corporations can be too mixed-up with conflict of interests between investing in art, buying art, and the study of research and presentation of art.

Q. You were born in New Jersey into a Bulgarian-Italian family, married an Italian artist, and studied in both America and Italy. Also you worked in America, Italy, Germany, Turkey and Australia. You appear to be the paragon of “cosmopolitan.” Can you share your experience of a citizen of the world?

Well, in many ways I’m a lost soul: my mother was an archeologist and her vision was always very vast, both geographically and historically, so she would look into the deep past and she would look at civilizations regarding each other across great divides of time and distance. I believe this and traveling with her as a child influenced my personality and my work. Indeed I speak many languages and had the opportunity and privilege to travel and work in many places. Indeed when I was curating the ‘Biennial of Sydney’ in 2007-2008(it opened in 2008), I remember traveling a lot to Asia—I would travel to Korea, Singapore, Japan, China, Vietnam, and Thailand because they were close to Australia. When I was living in America I would travel to Canada and Latin America—Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina. Now that I am more based in Europe, I’m traveling more in Europe actually, although next week I’m going to Dakar for the opening of the Dakar Biennial. So yes, I do feel a little bit cosmopolitan for better or for worse.

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev is an author, an organizer of events and exhibitions, and a researcher of artistic practices, art history, and politics of aesthetics. She is the Edith Kreeger Wolf Distinguished Visiting Professor in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University(2013–2015), Getty Visiting Scholar(2015) and as of 2016, director of the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art and the GAM(Galleria Civicad’ArteModerna e Contemporanea) in Turin, Italy. She drafted the 14th edition of the Istanbul Biennial in 2015 (SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms) and was the artistic director of dOCUMENTA(13), which took place in 2012 in Kassel, Germany as well as in Kabul, Afghanistan; Alexandria and Cairo, Egypt; and Banff, Canada. She was also the artistic director of the 16th Biennale of Sydney, Revolutions—Forms That Turn (2008); and senior curator at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, a MoMA affiliate in New York, from 1999 to 2001.