Artist yusuf Arakkal was recently aghast to see a painting of his—that of a hungry, poverty-stricken child—put up for display in an ornate gold frame. The exhibitors “took great pride in showing it” but the painter could not but feel sorry for his creation. “The child in rags was in stark contrast to the heavy rim around the painting. It simply nullified the impact of the work,” says Arakkal.  

This is just one example of what bad aesthetics can do to a good work of art. The assault on your senses can only get worse in the case of a poorly curated show for then it isn’t just a solitary painting that is at the receiving end, but multiple works of art mauled by unthinking design. Unfortunately, most art exhibitions today are handled by untrained people.  

“It’s fashionable to be a curator you see. All it takes to be one, according to the prevailing standards, is to be able to hang some frames together. And lo! A new curator is born. Simply disgusting,” says veteran critic and art enthusiast Aruna Vasudev. Osian’s head Neville Tuli agrees, “Today the very concept of curating has been abused and anyone who puts up an exhibition calls himself a curator.”  

The new “hot occupation” is an obviously spin-off of the booming Indian art market, which is on an all-time high. With an appreciable increase in the number of galleries and exhibitors in recent years, there has been a marked rise in the demand for proficient curators. “Those even remotely related to art have aggressively responded to the need. But in the absence of proper training, the result has been an amateur breed of ‘me-too’ operators,” says curator Alka Pande. Or as artist Gopi Gajwani puts it, it’s convenient to be a curator, hence the numbers. “You need to have some mettle to be an artist and a fat bank balance to be a gallerist. But all that you need in order to be a curator are good contacts,” he adds.  

... contd.