En-acting voices: Rhetorical platforms, public speaking and curatorial discourse

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The present proposal aims to interrogate the role "rhetorical production" (O'Neill, 2015) hasplayed in contemporary art curating over the past decade, as reflected in curatorialscholarship and conveyed in curatorial practice. It refers not only to the rich array ofdiscursive formats underpinning the rise of curatorial discourse --from talks and interviews tofirst-person narratives and biographical accounts-- but, also, to theoretical inquiries into theprogrammatic agenda of curating, which have increasingly considered this practice as aparticular mode of speaking (Sheikh, 2007; Rogoff, 2013; Butler and Lehrer, 2016) and thecurator as the main figure enabling a common space for speech in the sphere ofcontemporary art. Despite the prominence of curatorial discursive platforms during the lastten years, these have remained under-analysed and, with it, its impact on the process ofbiennalisation undergone by contemporary art, not least on the crucial themes debatedtherein, for instance, globalization, ecological crisis, decolonization, etc. Examining thecuratorial sites generating rhetorical production becomes therefore a need if we want tounderstand the nexus between contemporary art, curating and global politics.Drawing on examples of curatorial practice where public speech is purportedly reconcilingthe singularity of the curator with community instantiation, I aim to reassess thepervasiveness of the curatorial voice to understand the role curatorial discourse has playedin contemporary art during the last decade. My analysis intends to unpack how projects suchas documenta 14's "methexic" radio, the Serpentine Marathons, or the exhibition "Acts ofVoicing" have privileged speaking as a means to accomplish their curatorial purpose whilebracing the discursive dimension of curating.The emergence of this rhetorical paradigm has corresponded to a series of notions whichcurating has incorporated into its field of inquiry; such as, responsibility and "responsiveness"(Butler and Athanasiou, 2013), performativity (Lind (ed.), 2012; Lind, 2007, 2010), durationalprocesses (O'Neill and Doherty, 2011) as well as pedagogy (Graham et al., 2016). Thesereflections have also nurtured major curatorial approaches to the political, semiotic andlibidinal economies that instantiate a community, the latter often labelled in curatorialdiscourse as constituency (Byrne (ed.), 2018). In and by enacting such constituencies,curatorial practice has privileged public speaking as the main vehicle conveying thosemoments of community. In initiatives such as KORO, Bergen Assembly or the FolkestoneTriennial public address has operated both as the paradigm for disciplinary reflection oncurating, being the curator who speaks, and as the main structure that constitutes the"community" (Christ et al., 2015). This ambivalence, which summarizes well the ultimateagenda biennales and analog initiatives are set out to accomplish, gives away the politicalstances implied in a notion of community that requires, to become such, a mediatinginstantiation -the curator's. Still more interesting is the nature itself of this kind of publicspeaking, both a prerequisite for and a result of assembling constituencies in the name ofcontemporary art, which is able to endow the same with genuine political status -usuallymaking implicit that conventional forms of community lack political authenticity.