IMA to share the love when it comes to curating
Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art has adopted the popular curatorium approach to exhibition programs – to ensure diversity in the years to come
Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art has a reputation for experimentation.
The gallery, which holds a unique place in the local visual arts landscape, has recently announced it will embrace the increasingly popular curatorium model.
Director Robert Leonard will draw on the expertise and interests of seven adjunct curators to share the curatorial love and reflect diversity.
The idea of a collective approach, with agency accorded to many voices, is not new. Queensland Art Gallery’s Asia Pacific Triennial has used a broad curatorial base since its inception in 1993.
Widening curatorial groups got a boost all over the world with the pandemic’s travel restrictions but are likely to endure due to increasing interest in the harnessing of many voices and collaborative endeavours.
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The IMA’s new initiative extends to a suite of seven adjunct curators, with Leonard adding that curatorial changes will be most visible and dramatic in 2025, the IMA’s 50th anniversary.
Leonard is one year into his second directorial stint at the IMA (he was director from 2005 to 2013). He suggests that the group will operate within the IMA’s program of exhibitions and public facing events “like regular curatorial columnists with strong, distinct voices”. Leonard will oversee them like “a managing editor at a magazine”.
His rationale is to allow diversity in the IMA’s exhibitions program.
“This is hard to achieve with staffing models premised on full-time permanent positions,” Leonard says. “I thought, instead, to have a group of part-time, at-large adjunct curators, each working with us for a couple of years, enabling an expansion and turnover of new perspectives and knowledge within the program.
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“The adjuncts can be working in other organisations, they can be in other places. They can be established or emerging, specialists or generalists. I hope it will keep the conversation fresh and flexible.”
This new curatorial approach accompanies the announcement of the 2024 program, which includes solo exhibitions from Justine Youssef, Arthur Jafa, Brisbane’s Jasmine Togo-Brisby and James Barth.
Another thematic exhibition, Duty of Care, is curated by Stephanie Belangieri, one of the new adjunct curators, alongside Angela Goddard and Leonard.
The IMA’s adjunct curators will be involved in projects according to their individual interests and specialties. It’s likely they will work with Leonard on programs.
The newly appointed curators are Belangieri (from Sydney’s Carriageworks); First Nation’s artist and curator Shannon Brett; and queer art-history collective Kink, comprised of Amelia Barikin (UQ), Courtney Coombs, Callum McGrath, Spiros Panigirakis (Monash University) and Tim Riley Walsh (Museum of Contemporary Art).
Within the IMA, this group will “enable a clearer split between program design and program delivery”.
“My hope is that the adjunct curators won’t get stuck in the weeds,” Leonard says. “It’s an experiment. There’s a lot to work out, but that’s the fun of it.”
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