Carrying-Over: Curating as metaphorical practice / Yuval Etgar
*
This brief statement aspires to review curatorial practice by way of
comparison with a linguistic model that examines the prerequisites of
successful metaphorical expressions. By emphasizing some of the similarities between
the curator's work and the creation of literal or verbal metaphors I hope to put
forward some of the cardinal aspects of the curatorial practice.
Metaphors are often defined as the borrowing of a concept from one field
of meaning to another in order to highlight certain aspects or attributes of
the subject of the sentence. Although correct, this definition remains partial.
The analysis offered by twentieth century linguist Max Black[1] may
assist in getting a more complete view of the rule of metaphors. Black suggests
to begin by remembering that the metaphor always functions within a syntactic
context (e.g. a sentence) and cannot exist as an independent word, or as he
describes it, as "a free player". He divides the structure of a
sentence into two parts: the “focus”, which is usually the subject of the
sentence; and the “frame” which is the sentence structure supporting and
serving the subject. Both parts (the focus and the frame) are crucial for
establishing the meaning of the text, and replacing either one would alter the
meaning of the sentence. Such alterations of meaning are the ones underlying
the metaphorical uses of language. According to Black, when we look at
metaphorical activity as one based on the principe of inter-action, the
original focus, the substitutive focus, and the frame, are seen to influence
one another and enrich the potential space of meaning, both of the original
word and of the metaphor substituting for it.
The reader connects these two ideas of the two concepts (the metaphor
and the original word), and it is this connection that activates the so called magical
power of the metaphor. The mutual awakening and enlivening effect of the two
ideas manifests itself in the formation of new meanings in the mind of the
adequate reader/spectator, who makes the unobvious connection between the
different ideas. The mutual fertilization of the two concepts broadens and
enriches the boundaries of the language, for it sheds new light – in the given
sentence, in the language, and in the general culture – both on the literal and
on the substitutive expression.[2] For
instance, Black offers in his essay to examine the classic metaphor "Man
is wolf". Our understanding of both the concept of man and wolf were
shaped in light of this metaphor. Although Black suggests only simple and basic
metaphors as examples, one can think of more complex metaphoric expressions
that shape and enrich the written and spoken languages. The famous biblical
metaphor "A sound of thin silence"[3] is an
interesting example. Such an expression reveals the possible relations between
spatial expressions (thin) and audio ones (sound, silence – also antonyms). The
line between the different semantic fields is subverted and new fields of
meaning are revealed.
Black's interaction view not only suggests a way of reading metaphors
rather it also implies what conditions should exist in order to create
successful metaphors. Borrowing a word from a different semantic field in order
to emphasize a certain quality is enough for defining an expression as a
metaphoric one, but this does not insure that the metaphor will surpass
alternative literal expressions.
**
The choice act characterizing the curatorship may be examined, in
my view, by juxtaposing it with the usage of metaphors, with special reference
to Black’s conception of the metaphoric activity as an interactive one. The
contemporary curator chooses artworks that originate in various semantic fields
(that is, various styles, periods, and artists); and he harnesses them in the service
of an ideational narrative. Crucially, however, a fertile curating act is one
that does not exploit works of art by forcing a preconceived narrative or idea
upon them, but rather brings the potential interpretive space hidden in the
various artworks to fruition. Just like metaphors, the curating act reveals its
magic when it allows a dialectical movement between different artworks.
When the positioning within the exhibition space enables an exchange of meaning
among the works in a bivalent relation that extends the exhibition’s potential
range of interpretations, the act of presentation then becomes an instrument
serving art, rather than exploiting and conceptualizing it. The texts appearing
today next to artworks in almost every exhibition are also part of the
presentational configuration that may either conceptualize art in reductive
manner or, conversely, facilitate a process of mutual fertilization. A
successful curating-metaphor offers a new perspective on reality and draws
connections between disparate semantic fields. The encounter between the
different fields enables the language to extend beyond the confines of the
conventional, literal language.
An additional characteristic of metaphors as they appear in verbal
language is their intimate relationship with the silent spaces of language;
that is, expressions exceeding what the “usual”, literal language can express.[4] In view
of this quality, poetic, metaphysical and religious languages have become the
most felicitous spaces for metaphorical expression. Religious discussions and
scriptures, as well as poetic or elegiac texts, have always embodied the
difficulty in bridging the gap between the expressible and the divine or
metaphysical. These genres are marked by a constant need to extend language beyond
its own limits. The metaphor, by virtue of its miraculous capacity to move back
and forth from one field of meaning to another, is capable of bridging the gaps
created in the silent spaces of language, for words carry not only a literal
but also a mental charge. Thanks to the condensed meanings they carry, we can
choose which words to use, when and how to use them, and what content would
fill the silent spaces between and after the words. Metaphors serve us in
places where we wish to skip or bypass certain expressions, or when we seek to
stretch the boundaries of language, to renovate it, or to create an altogether
new one.
***
A work of art cannot
in fact present itself by virtue of its own definition and force the viewer
into contemplation; it lacks the necessary vitality, energy, and health.
Artworks seem to be genuinely sick and helpless—a spectator has to be led to
the artwork … It is in fact no coincidence that the word “curator” is
etymologically related to “cure.” Curating is curing. The process of curating
cures the image’s powerlessness, its incapacity to present itself. The artwork
needs external help, it needs an exhibition and curator to become visible.[5]
As seen in the excerpt above taken from the writings of the theoretician
Boris Groys', presentation is a necessary condition of possibility for the
appearance of the image, and at the same time it is also that which divests the
image of its ideal purity. But ever since the postmodernist break and the
recognition of the unavoidability of accompanying the presentation of images
with an “excess” narrative load, it often seems that curators completely
relinquish the capacity of the visual image to enrich the spectator in a way
that exceeds whatever may be said in words. Many exhibitions reduce visual to
verbal expression.
The act of curating aspires to shed light on the various artworks each
loaded with deep visual meaning and presented in relation to one another. It
does not create something out of nothing rather it uses artworks as its
components. Taking into consideration that artworks are the starting point of
the curating action, the curator takes upon her a great responsibility. The
curating act is similar in this sense to criticism, which is not limited to
grading the object of criticism or to defining it as good or bad, but, as
French poet Charles Beaudelaire once put it:
[F]or the sake of
justice, that is, for its self-justification, criticism should be partisan,
passionate and political, that is to say, it should be conceived from a
particular point of view, but from a point of view which opens up the largest
number of horizons.[6]
Both curating and criticism must acknowledge their role to be that of
seeking to expand the discussion and the meaning that already exist in
potentia in the artworks presented. In light of such understanding of the
curatorial action, the metaphorical model enables us to think of various
interpretations of the curator’s function in the field of art. When we look at
curatorial activity (through the prism of the metaphorical model) as an
activity consisting primarily in choosing and placing, we may
easily discern a correspondence between the curating act and our present-day
society and economy. Independent curators, installation artists, video and
environmental sculpture artists are all the most natural manifestations of the
current historical condition. In order to internalize the implications and
transformations borne by the transition to current day choice economy,
the various human activities should be adapted to the spirit of our time. When
curatorial activity is based on the metaphorical model, there is a greater
chance that the curator’s work of making choices and syntheses while putting
together an exhibition, a fair or an annual plan for a museum would be more
profound and complex and would allow for the preservation of the artist’s
power, as well as that of the various artworks, within the overall
presentational configuration.
[1] Other
major scholars proposing models similar to Black’s are Roman Jakobson, Paul
Ricoeur, Julia Kristeva and H.N. Bialik’s famous essay, “Revealment and
Concealment in Language”. Max Black’s model presented here appears in his book Models
and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1962).
[2] A
similar instance of the theorization of metaphor as extrinsic to literal
language may be found in the writings and films of Russian directors such as Vsevolod
Pudovkin and Sergei Eisenstein, who have consolidated the theory of cinematic
montage according to which the adhesion of two images that are not obviously
related generate in the spectator a third concept deriving from their
juxtaposition.
[3] 1 Kings,
(19:12).
[4] The
expression "A thin sound of silence" that describes the revelation of
god to Elijah is of such a character.
