The Curator

Structured like a Hollywood trailer with rhythmic editing and multiple effects, Shahar Marcus’s video depicts a curator’s “rise to power” with a measure of grotesqueness, sketching a map of the art world where the curator reigns supreme. Mapping external signs and cultural codes, Marcus traces the curator’s activity and multiple functions, while he ponders over the skills required for the coveted position, and analyzes the mechanism of self-glorification. ‘The Curator’ also criticizes the superficiality and presumption in the art world, the “celeb” culture which crowns objects of admiration and imitation, and the yearning of patrons—powerful tycoons—to establish their high status by means of artists and their artworks. The film offers a “behind-the-scenes” peek into this impulse-ridden world, often perceived as a detached, elitist bubble, thereby shedding light on one of many aspects in contemporary culture.