​This was the stark headline of an article in The Times yesterday (1 May) by its arts correspondent, Richard Morrison. Without the influx of foreign visitors the national museums will suffer. University museums will face funding losses as international students fail to enrol. Many museums and galleries are facing the possibility of permanent closure because of the Coronavirus pandemic and not just the smaller ones: the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth and the Postal Museum in London have already signalled their imminent insolvency. Moreover, the culture secretary seems to be more interested in getting top-level football played again rather than opening any aspect of the arts. As Morrison states, if it’s deemed acceptable for footballers to stand side-by-side in a defensive wall, why shouldn’t dancers be allowed to perform? If we’re allowed to visit supermarkets, why can’t social distancing be applied to our cultural assets? Museums and galleries will need to be creative in what they offer and how they make it available to us. So we must all do our bit to support our cultural heritage once re-opening starts. After all, with the drop in foreign visitors, social distancing will be easier to impose and we’ll be able to enjoy some of our best loved sites without huge crowds. But, above all, we need to lobby government to provide financial support for the hard-pressed smaller museums and galleries that simply may not survive this crisis otherwise.  

Restaurant menus are “curated”, fashion shows are “curated”, playlists are “curated”. So, when everything is “curated,” what does the word even mean? The term has become a fashionable buzzword, but its ubiquity has left it almost devoid of meaning. It is used to suggest reassurance, implying that the thing curated is meaningful yet, mostly, its use in these contexts is meaningless. Even worse, is use of the phrase “carefully curated”, which is tautological.

The origins of “curate” lie in the Latin word “curare”, meaning “to take care of”, which is what traditional users of the term, in museums and galleries, have done for a very long time. But, the idea of curators as creative agents in their own right is new, signified by the move from vocational work to independent and critical engagement and reflected in the move in recent years by museums to credit the curators of their exhibitions. According to Hans-Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of Serpentine Galleries in London “The current vogue for the idea of curating comes from the proliferation and reproduction of ideas, processed information and images in the digital age [and that] this contemporary resonance risks producing a kind of bubble where the word in itself loses meaning.”

For me this has parallels with the archive sector and the hijacking of the terms “archivist” and “archiving”, initially by IT, but now used in a wider context to simply mean collection or storage, and not just of documents, whereas the classic definition is of records selected for permanent preservation for their historical and informational value. With the dilution in meaning and value of this professional terminology, what then can those working in the arts and heritage sector use to reflect their skills and training?
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Inspired by an article - “These days, everyone’s a curator” - in The New York Times, 3 March 2020. 

A 12-week old Weimaraner puppy is the latest addition to Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ Protective Services Team. Riley is part of a pilot programme. After a year’s training, his job will be to sniff out pests, such as moths and beetles that may be lurking in works made from organic materials like wool, silk and cotton. Weimaraners are highly intelligent, with an incredible sense of smell, and have the stamina to work long hours. 

​When Charles II ascended the throne in 1660 he wasted no time in amassing a formidable art collection which, whilst not as celebrated as that of his father, Charles I, nevertheless included works by Bruegel, Leonardo da Vinci and Titian. He also commissioned a portrait of himself that is almost three metres high. The work, by John Michael Wright, is almost three metres high and depicts the king in parliamentary robes and the newly created regalia, displaying the return of regal power. The portraits and other works from Charles’ collection feature in an exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery that runs until 13 May 2018 and provide a counterpoint to the larger exhibition of Charles I’s works at the Royal Academy.