Hacking the Avatar…er…I mean Curator…

In April, I attended the Hacking the Curator workshop at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, as part of their Relaunch Programme. Here are some unresolved thoughts….

In their project Insistere #7_Don’t Fuck with my Name (Hacking the Curator) Sabine Reinfeld and Ulf Aminde created an avatar of KW Chief Curator Ellen Blumenstein, that among other things examined how a curator, and her work, structure an institution. “The avatar – Ellen Bluumenstein / chief curator – not only investigates the performative qualities necessary for the portrayal of identities, but also asserts itself in the responsibilities of the institution with gestures of subjectivisation, and demands a response.” (KW website) 

With an array of costumes laid out on the floor of the space, the event provided an opportunity for not just Sabine Reinfeld to become an “avatar” in front of us, but for the participants to do so as well. After the initial introduction to the Ellen Bluumenstein concept, facebook profile and description of KW’s previous avatar performances, several discussions unfolded about “what is an avatar?” and “how can an avatar of a curator aid the KW programme?” Eventually participants were able to select from the collection of costumes, which became a kind of trigger for different questions for the artists.

In creating Ellen Bluumenstein, Reinfeld and Aminde wanted to avoid the construction of a joke or a fakery. They wanted to create “A subversive situation within a glamorous situation” and through the performances of the avatar as curator, explore how to provide gestures that would facilitate this. In other words, to not just create a copy of the real Ellen Blumenstein in her new role as Chief Curator of one of Berlin’s most notorious contemporary arts institutions, but to create what I consider as a kind of ‘performed critique’ of both curator and institution simultaneously.

This is particularly interesting given the fact that Ellen Blumenstein specifically commissioned Reinfeld to create an avatar of herself. In her goal to open out the institution, whereby “…the institution bears a responsibility for a public space that includes a concern both for the people who actively use it, and for those who share it as visitors” (KW website) my question is: how does the presence of an avatar help? Does the presence of an avatar draw attention to the role of the curator? Does it glamorise it, especially through the deliberate choice of costumes? While not intended as an in-joke for the artworld, I wonder how many people attending the opening or the other events at KW (particularly those who are not Facebook “friends” of the avatar or of KW) actually pick up on the presence of the avatar? Do they care? Does it matter?

One of the workshop participants suggested that the use of the avatar should be to perform actions that the real curator cannot do, to be radical, to break with tradition and break out of the institution and into the public realm. And in some ways it has – partnerships with various art education institutions have seen the avatar continue the dialogue of institutional critique started at the opening of KW’s Relaunch. But does it go far enough? Or has the avatar simply become an extension of the original chief curator by way of participating in public activities she simply doesn’t have time for?

Responding to the carte blanche provided by Blumenstein, both artists question what exactly is an avatar? In today’s overtly digitised culture, my initial thoughts of the avatar are as a playful, online entity, and whilst this aspect of Ellen Bluumenstein was present in the creation of her own facebook profile (and subsequent confusion of the real Ellen Blumenstein’s “friends”), the artists however decided to delve deeper into the original meaning of an avatar as something more spiritual. Certainly in terms of the emotions experienced by Reinfeld herself during her performances, often involving extending her hand to make contact with complete strangers, perhaps it is. But what is it then to other people? Is it humour? Irony?

Perhaps the answer lies in the changing costumes. Are they representative of the changing role of the real Ellen Blumenstein from commissioner, institutional representative to friend or professional contact? Each outfit is loaded with meaning, appropriate to each context, yet as one participant and friend of the real Ellen Blumenstein noted during the workshop, there is something not quite right about them, something uncanny.  Or perhaps the key is in the avatar’s gestures themselves. The shampoo-commercial-style-hair-shake or perhaps the introduction “Hi, I’m the Chief Curator” with complimentary handshake – these are all symbols for/of the curator as mediator, communicator, schmoozer that through their re-enactment in front of a crowd of people, question the role, or the perceived role of, the curator. In any case, for Reinfeld and Aminde, the performance of the avatar is not an ironic version of Ellen Blumenstein, it is a critique on the celebrity status of the curator and exploration of ways in which “to fictionalise the identity of the curator.”

For me personally, I am drawn to the timing of the collaboration between Reinfeld and Aminde and the subsequent avatar performances. I wonder how much of the current increasing discourse surrounding the changing nature of labour in the cultural field influenced Ellen Blumenstein in her commissioning of this work. Could we use the avatar as a way to examine curatorial work itself? In Ellen Bluumenstein’s facebook post prior to the workshop, she mentioned her desire to have a moment of “Work withdrawal” for an opportunity to talk about work properly and of working “out of love” and while it’s unclear whether she’s referring to her work as a performer or her fictitious work as a chief curator, these questions about the necessity of her “work” within the world at large hints at the increasing precarious nature of labour within institutions: “There is no separation between 1. the so-called work; and 2. A policy that negotiates its terms…Without a doubt, it is so that all these budget and collective bargaining, the bickering and the fighting for employment contracts are useful first steps!” (facebook)

Even more intriguing for me is the fact that it is unclear if the letter from Ellen Bluumenstein addresses the real Ellen Blumenstein or if it is written to herself as the avatar, just as it is unknown whether or not the real Ellen Blumenstein has read this post and is indeed reflecting on her own position as chief curator.