Satirical Portrait of the Curator as a Multifunctional Expert

Christophe Kihm, art critic and professor at HEAD Geneva, published a satirical essay in artpress in 2012 dissecting the figure of the curator. He argues that the curator has replaced the traditional exhibition commissioner or conservator by claiming multiple roles: author, artist, critic, historian, advisor, theorist, researcher, and even chef. The curator's core activity is selecting and circulating names—both proper and common—from diverse fields like mathematics, economics, philosophy, and astrology, constructing social capital rather than meaning. Kihm critiques the curator's reliance on a weak definition of "the contemporary" to judge art's relevance, a subjective expertise that masks market-driven logics. He warns that the curatorial model, based on programming as a continuous chain of events, is infiltrating art schools as a pedagogical formula, replacing critical thinking with event-driven spectacle. The essay ends with a 2022 vignette of a curator-chef performing before dizzy students in a gallery with a restaurant and cafeteria, symbolizing the commodification of conviviality.