Gabrielle Moser's article "Do Curators Need University Curatorial Programs?" in C magazine issue 100.(Letter to the editor)

A curator's job is to curate exhibitions.

The fact that many curators also organize fundraisers is more indicative of a lack of funds than a change in what it is to curate. I hope that curatorial students are not studying fundraising at university, but are reading and writing a lot about art instead. This is how Gabrielle Moser concluded her article anyway, which was the advice given to her by the experienced curators she talked to for her article, "Do Curators Need University Curatorial Programs?" (C Magazine 100)

It is popular among new artists and curators to call the coordination of any arts and culture event curatorial. I suppose that the idea of a contemporary art curator is still so new that the title is deemed up for grabs by many of those involved in any angle of cultural programming. But, meanwhile, the very artist-run centres that many of these people volunteer for are increasingly phasing out the artistic duties (i.e., curating) of their artistic directors, emphasizing the administrative responsibilities instead. Administration is in fact how the directors of ARCS and the curators of all sorts of galleries must spend much of their time as the result of little funding. So while curating is more popular than ever before, I worry that the role of the curator is being taken for granted.

I'm not concerned with whether or not curators need curatorial degrees, just like I haven't cared if artists need art school since I was there myself. I think the new curatorial degree programs say more about post-secondary institutions than the art world. In 2006, I participated in The Future of Idea Art, a group residency at the Banff Centre. The residency artists and curators were outraged by the Centre's ethics policy that regulated the content of our work and required those of us using "human subjects" (all of us) to first report the work to the Research Ethics Board for approval. We were assured that such a policy, used for research-based projects in the social sciences and humanities, is standard in post-secondary institutions and that we would not be censored as a result of the policy (I find the former disturbing, not reassuring, and I don't trust the latter). I understand, however, that some artists call their work "research," but I think this lacks faith in both art and research respectively.

An architect and spouse of one of the residency artists suggested that artists will one day need to be licensed to practice, just like a doctor, lawyer or architect. I don't think ...