Theft Is Vision

Présentation
Bob Nickas
Theft Is Vision

Extrait de «Questions About Art Criticism: A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words. Are a Thousand Words Worth a Thousand Dollars»

«How do you relate your thinking about art with your practice as a curator ?

Writing about art is one way around the feeling that you are almost always on the outside looking in.
Organizing exhibitions is another. After 16 years of doing both, I automatically say that I better understand the works that I show than the ones I only write about.

Why is that ? Because I am bringing them — if only temporarily — into a little world of my own making ? Because I am in more direct contact with the person who created the work in the first place ? Because the work is physically in my possession? (As I have happily admitted in the past, I imagine each of my exhibitions as part of an ever-growing yet fictional collection: mine.) Or is this simply a position I have taken and in which I have a vested interest to maintain? And even if that’s the case, does it make my answer any less true? I don’t think so. The artworks that I take responsibility for showing, for creating a particular situation in which they will he seen are much closer to me than any others. You understand people with greater insight when you are around them, and this is true for works of art as well.»

L’auteur
Bob Nickas est critique et commissaire d’exposition indépendant. Il a organisé plus de 50 expositions depuis 1984, notamment en France, avec l’équipe du Consortium pour la Biennale de Lyon 2004. Il est conseiller pour les expositions du centre d’art contemporain P.S.1 à New York. Il collabore régulièrement à Artforum et a écrit sur Felix Gonzalez-Torres, On Kawara, Olivier Mosset, Cady Noland, Andy Wharol, etc.

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