Michael Workman: Do you find affinities between your work and that of other curators? What are some of the issues that inform your current practice?
Francesco Bonami: I don’t know how much I am connected with the work of other curators. My practice has been less defined by the contemporary art field, I always try to address lifestyle and other issues outside of it. In that sense, these exhibitions have a broader range, so they are riskier and fail more often than a museum exhibition. I tend to expand a bit and break the boundaries between the different disciplines and that’s how I develop my curatorial vision.
MW: What disciplines do you borrow from?
FB: Anthropology, fashion design, architecture. These disciplines influence so much and are influenced so much by contemporary art that I think it is important to create a connection and a relationship between them.
MW: What have been your most successful attempts at making those connections?
FB: I think the exhibition I curated in Florence called ‘The Fourth Sex: Adolescent Extremes’ was quite a successful enterprise. I think that the ‘Universal Experience’ show has proven itself quite substantial. Those go a little outside the field. Also the 2003 Venice Biennale, which was not my own curatorial effort but the effort of many curators, was in its insult and failure quite paradoxically successful.
MW: This element of the chance encounter in your curatorial practice, why is that important to you?
FB: Because today the fields are completely interconnected. The artists themselves are crossing boundaries. It would be naïve to think that you could just think of contemporary art as its own isolated language. It’s important that you connect it with society, with culture, with the world at large.
MW: What are some of the most difficult problems of this approach?
FB: It has turned the curator, in time, into an author. I think that is very risky because it puts you into a different position than just an organiser of an exhibition. It has put the curator into the role of competitor with the artist because you are trying to create an autonomous entity that is the exhibition. That is the most difficult obstacle that you have. How do you maintain distance, but not so much that the exhibition has its own autonomy, and as a curator how far can you push your signature to make the show relevant?
MW: How do you accomplish that?
FB: I don’t know if I ever accomplish it. There is always this risk and this possibility. At times you should be the one to step back and let the artist and the project interact with each other. Maybe the curator should take a bit of a back seat.
MW: So you see this as kind of a third element. The project becomes a third element between the artist and the curator?
FB: You have an artist and you have the idea and you put them together, the result is the third entity which is the exhibition. It is mostly composed by the artist, but it is also created by the relationship between the artist and the team.
MW: Do you view the exhibition as a space of culture?
FB: I would agree with that.
MW: What kind of problems does this create? Doesn’t it conflict with an artist’s desire to create and maintain an autonomous zone?
FB: That is problematic. I think that the artist often wants to have their own bubble and they want that bubble translated in a different context that won’t be interfered with. That is the most difficult and interesting task a curator has, trying to create a dialogue with the artist that allows the artist to maintain their autonomy, their own identity and integrity, but at the same time be connected with the skeleton of the exhibition.
MW: Who are the artists out there right now that best represent this ability to juxtapose that sense of cultural intersection?
FB: I work a lot with Doug Aitken and Thomas Hirschhorn. Two artists of different contemporary realities, two different kinds of beast, but both reflect on the contemporary reality in a deep and complex way. Those are the two artists at the moment who I really respect for the way they look at reality and transform it.
MW: What about other curators?
FB: The younger generation of curators. I don’t like to name names, but there are many young curators who are coming along with their practice. I think that the younger curator has a little bit less of a desire to take chances or risk, but that is something they will eventually correct. If I see a flaw in the curatorial practice of younger people it is that there is an obsession with consensus. There is an obsession with trying to tailor the perfect exhibition.
MW: What are some of the most important philosophical concerns for you as a curator?
FB: I don’t have philosophical concerns. They build themselves up within the frame and the body of the exhibition. I don’t articulate those other things. I may have an intuition or interesting thought to follow, but I don’t have a philosophy of curating. I guess if I had one it would be to push the envelope and take risks, that’s what interests me. There is a concern with failing, but there is no fear of failing in my practice.
MW: Sort of a gambler’s philosophy. See how it turns out by making an attempt in different directions.
FB: When I take a direction, I take it and I follow it accepting the consequences.
MW: So you are now a Curator At Large at the MCA.
FB: I am also the artistic director of the three foundations in Italy. One is in the northeast near Trieste called the Villa Manin Centre for Contemporary Art. One is in the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo per L’Arte, Turin. One is in Florence, the Pitti Immagine. It is the organisation, a kind of laboratory, where we develop these exhibitions such as ‘The Fourth Sex’, that are more related to fashion and to general culture.
MW: A laboratory of those ideas. Is that why you are now at large, because you are moving towards those ideas?
FB: No, not really. I moved back to New York, I spent seven years in Chicago, and I decided I wanted to relocate back to New York. I started a practice here that would function very well even if I am not living here. Both the museum and myself thought that a different status would help clarify my practice better.
MW: Are you going to be putting more time into other curatorial work?
FB: No, no. It’s basically the same, just the wording of my title is different. Now I am allowed to stay and live in another city where before I had to live here.
MW: What was the reason for moving to New York?
FB: My family.
Francesco Bonami: I don’t know how much I am connected with the work of other curators. My practice has been less defined by the contemporary art field, I always try to address lifestyle and other issues outside of it. In that sense, these exhibitions have a broader range, so they are riskier and fail more often than a museum exhibition. I tend to expand a bit and break the boundaries between the different disciplines and that’s how I develop my curatorial vision.
MW: What disciplines do you borrow from?
FB: Anthropology, fashion design, architecture. These disciplines influence so much and are influenced so much by contemporary art that I think it is important to create a connection and a relationship between them.
MW: What have been your most successful attempts at making those connections?
FB: I think the exhibition I curated in Florence called ‘The Fourth Sex: Adolescent Extremes’ was quite a successful enterprise. I think that the ‘Universal Experience’ show has proven itself quite substantial. Those go a little outside the field. Also the 2003 Venice Biennale, which was not my own curatorial effort but the effort of many curators, was in its insult and failure quite paradoxically successful.
MW: This element of the chance encounter in your curatorial practice, why is that important to you?
FB: Because today the fields are completely interconnected. The artists themselves are crossing boundaries. It would be naïve to think that you could just think of contemporary art as its own isolated language. It’s important that you connect it with society, with culture, with the world at large.
MW: What are some of the most difficult problems of this approach?
FB: It has turned the curator, in time, into an author. I think that is very risky because it puts you into a different position than just an organiser of an exhibition. It has put the curator into the role of competitor with the artist because you are trying to create an autonomous entity that is the exhibition. That is the most difficult obstacle that you have. How do you maintain distance, but not so much that the exhibition has its own autonomy, and as a curator how far can you push your signature to make the show relevant?
MW: How do you accomplish that?
FB: I don’t know if I ever accomplish it. There is always this risk and this possibility. At times you should be the one to step back and let the artist and the project interact with each other. Maybe the curator should take a bit of a back seat.
MW: So you see this as kind of a third element. The project becomes a third element between the artist and the curator?
FB: You have an artist and you have the idea and you put them together, the result is the third entity which is the exhibition. It is mostly composed by the artist, but it is also created by the relationship between the artist and the team.
MW: Do you view the exhibition as a space of culture?
FB: I would agree with that.
MW: What kind of problems does this create? Doesn’t it conflict with an artist’s desire to create and maintain an autonomous zone?
FB: That is problematic. I think that the artist often wants to have their own bubble and they want that bubble translated in a different context that won’t be interfered with. That is the most difficult and interesting task a curator has, trying to create a dialogue with the artist that allows the artist to maintain their autonomy, their own identity and integrity, but at the same time be connected with the skeleton of the exhibition.
MW: Who are the artists out there right now that best represent this ability to juxtapose that sense of cultural intersection?
FB: I work a lot with Doug Aitken and Thomas Hirschhorn. Two artists of different contemporary realities, two different kinds of beast, but both reflect on the contemporary reality in a deep and complex way. Those are the two artists at the moment who I really respect for the way they look at reality and transform it.
MW: What about other curators?
FB: The younger generation of curators. I don’t like to name names, but there are many young curators who are coming along with their practice. I think that the younger curator has a little bit less of a desire to take chances or risk, but that is something they will eventually correct. If I see a flaw in the curatorial practice of younger people it is that there is an obsession with consensus. There is an obsession with trying to tailor the perfect exhibition.
MW: What are some of the most important philosophical concerns for you as a curator?
FB: I don’t have philosophical concerns. They build themselves up within the frame and the body of the exhibition. I don’t articulate those other things. I may have an intuition or interesting thought to follow, but I don’t have a philosophy of curating. I guess if I had one it would be to push the envelope and take risks, that’s what interests me. There is a concern with failing, but there is no fear of failing in my practice.
MW: Sort of a gambler’s philosophy. See how it turns out by making an attempt in different directions.
FB: When I take a direction, I take it and I follow it accepting the consequences.
MW: So you are now a Curator At Large at the MCA.
FB: I am also the artistic director of the three foundations in Italy. One is in the northeast near Trieste called the Villa Manin Centre for Contemporary Art. One is in the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo per L’Arte, Turin. One is in Florence, the Pitti Immagine. It is the organisation, a kind of laboratory, where we develop these exhibitions such as ‘The Fourth Sex’, that are more related to fashion and to general culture.
MW: A laboratory of those ideas. Is that why you are now at large, because you are moving towards those ideas?
FB: No, not really. I moved back to New York, I spent seven years in Chicago, and I decided I wanted to relocate back to New York. I started a practice here that would function very well even if I am not living here. Both the museum and myself thought that a different status would help clarify my practice better.
MW: Are you going to be putting more time into other curatorial work?
FB: No, no. It’s basically the same, just the wording of my title is different. Now I am allowed to stay and live in another city where before I had to live here.
MW: What was the reason for moving to New York?
FB: My family.
Michael Workman is a writer based in Chicago and Chief Editor of Bridge Magazine
