Building Cultural Bridges through Curation
Marco Galvan
is the in-house curator for AucArt who focuses on bringing an exhibition-approach to online sales. Having studied at London’s Central Saint Martins and the School for Curatorial Studies in Venice, Marco has worked with an international roster of artists in both cities across a range of themes. He is also a juror for Volume 13 of Friend of The Artist. Marco spoke to Alison Poon about the contrast between the Venice and London Art scenes, independent curation and sales curation, and discovering his own curatorial voice.
INTERVIEW WITH MARCO GALVAN
Alison: What initially drew you into the art world and curation in particular?
Marco: While I was writing my dissertation for my BA in Languages, Civilisation and Science of Language in Venice, I started realising I wanted to work with contemporary art. Being in Venice for 4 years introduced me to the vibrant and inspiring artistic local and international scene, so I applied to the 1 year course at the School for Curatorial Studies in Venice and I got accepted. It was an extremely fulfilling experience that taught me a lot and made me decide to pursue my studies in this field.
With the School for Curatorial Studies I curated my first exhibition, “Command-Alternative-Escape” at the Thetis Garden, Arsenale, in Venice in 2017. After that I moved to London to attend the MA Culture, Criticism and Curation course at Central Saint Martins.
“Curating contemporary art exhibitions and cultural projects is the best way to initiate a dialogue, reinforce communication and build cultural bridges.”
So far, my path in the art world is being constellated by gradual discoveries and a proliferation of interests that make me focus on the curatorial practice. While at first I used to think my BA was a bit of a mismatch, with time I realised that it helped me a lot — and still helps me — moving my first steps into curation: after all, curating contemporary art exhibitions and cultural projects is the best way to initiate a dialogue, reinforce communication and build cultural bridges.
Alison: You started your curatorial journey in Venice and are now living and working in London, how do the art worlds compare?
Marco: I have a very intimate bond with both cities, they have two different rhythms, both stimulating in their own way.
In Venice, the art-world enchantment comes from the Biennale that focuses on contemporary art practices, including dance, music, theatre and architecture.
It’s a tiny city with huge international program, used to vanguards since its birth. Galleries like Victoria Miro and Van Del Koelen, and the Pinault Foundation have now flanked local realities like Alberta Pane Gallery and Michela Rizzo Gallery, making the contemporary art scene in the city wide- ranging and vibrant. It’s pleasant to work there because you can bump into people on bridges and there isn’t that sense of asphyxia or constant rush that characterises metropolis like London, for example. This is the magic, but there’s also a curse: Venice is anchored to its present and past, there’s no perspective on the future. Luckily, the city and its community is so strong that keeps attracting intellectuals, artists, protagonists from any field.
And I also try to escape there at least twice a year, it’s like taking a deep breath. Compared to Venice, London’s art scene is quite unique in its dynamism, diversity, and abundance. I don’t think a place like this exists anywhere else in the world. London has such a concentration of art spaces, commercial and non-profit galleries, museums, institutions, residency programs, cultural centres, artists and art professionals, which makes it unique, highly inspiring, and sometimes quite overwhelming. The endless options one could find to grow, artistically and professionally, make London quite special to me as well.
Alison: What has been your favourite project that you’ve worked on and why?
Marco: Each exhibition that I have curated represents a piece of my educational path. That’s why it is so difficult for me to choose some “favourites”.
To go some way towards answering your question, I would say “Public Toilet”, solo show by British- Korean artist Sang Woo Kim, the first exhibition I curated alone in 2019 is one I am very fond of for obvious reasons. I think it’s a project that would be relevant anytime and anywhere. We worked on the show for more than 8 months, we put our whole selves and hearts into the show, it’s great to work in such a great synergy with an artist towards a common goal. In this sense, the project was extremely rewarding for me, but also from the point of view of the relationship with the audience. It was a project also conceived considering its interaction with the public, both on the local and international level.
Another exhibition that I am particularly fond of is “Persona” at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London. It investigated the relationship between Identity and Personality from a psychoanalytical perspective, showcasing original documents and letters from the Institute’s archive alongside a selection of 4 contemporary artists (Martina Camani, Jiaqing Mo, Melik Ohanian and Calgary Tahiroglu) who were amplifying the discourse around the topic. It was a complex project, as much to conceive, as it was to create and communicate it, but the final result was surprising, even for myself.
Alison: What do you enjoy about being able to work with interdisciplinary practices?
Marco: I like the idea to create a diversified exhibition path, able to offer a broad and complete vision on a topic. In this sense, I see exhibitions as forms of dialogue, where the curator is a mediator between the artist and the public, articulating ideas and concepts that are not immediately available to the public, or that are newly activated by the interpretation, grouping, and the display of artworks.
I enjoy working with painting, sculpture, video, performance, any form that is relevant to the theme I am investigating in an exhibition or a sale. I think it’s a heterogeneous aspect inherent to human thought, which does not think and perceive things monolithically but constantly creates connections between them. I also never thought to focus on just one medium because I find it reductive. For me, this flexibility within the practice is fascinating. It’s also a way to avoid repetition and redundancy, and to keep boredom away.
Also, talking about interdisciplinarity, AucArt recently started inviting guest curators from diverse fields to curate monthly sales. For me, it’s a valuable opportunity to see other curatorial approaches and to learn from other practitioners, their artistic choices and the discourse around which they decide to articulate their sale.
Alison: How have you found curating sales and digital spaces compared to more conceptual gallery projects?
Marco: When I joined AucArt and began to curate auctions and sales, I found it quite different. But a curator has to be flexible and I thought it was a good opportunity to prove myself. While auctions have traditionally contained all sorts of works in loosely defined categories, works included in curated sales are restricted by far narrower criteria, and fewer lots— typically around 60—which I think offers greater cohesion and oversight to discerning collectors.
Buying online allows you to really contemplate a purchase and gives you the ability to decide if it fits into your collection. By watching the auction over a number of days, one can make more conscious decisions rather than a snap judgment. As I started working as an in-house curator with AucArt I tried to bring an exhibition-approach to online sales. I guess it’s interesting for a collector to browse artworks grouped under a common theme, displayed according to it and going beyond the mere aesthetic of an art piece.
Parallel to its commercial nature, I care about curating good and interesting sales, able to produce something and generate thought. I'm really against these kind of curatorial activities where you just consult your agenda, give calls, and organise, with little research and/or curatorial thinking, making it become systematic and sterile. Nicolas Bourriaud used to call it holoflex curating.
Alison: Are there any themes you find yourself revisiting from project to project?
“ I see exhibitions as forms of dialogue, where the curator is a mediator between the artists and the public”
Marco: I have curated exhibitions where the theme of Identity is quite recurrent, sometimes in more subtle ways. “Persona” was about the relationship between identity and personality, and “Public Toilet”, through concepts of appropriation art and authorship, wanted to delve in the topic of the artist’s identity, prompting a greater sense of awareness about the way in which we engage and interpret the world around us.
Generally speaking, I wouldn’t say I focus on a specific topic, rather that my curatorial practice involves thinking through artworks and drawing links between everyday phenomena and contemporary theoretical discourse. Also, in every project I curate, I tend to put a particular emphasis on the relationship with the public, paying attention to the intertwining voices of an exhibition: artworks, artists, institution, visitors and how much the audience is active in the process of creating meaning.
I like to think the art exhibition has a transformative character, although it cannot actively make mute objects speak, by presenting them 'as art' it creates a space of expectation for the public. In this perspective, the exhibition is a site where we, as visitors, are encouraged to enter into a mental game – one in which we imagine that objects speak to us.
These objects become special, and with this status comes a responsibility to mean something and the relevance of the curator to articulate and mediate this meaning.