ABSTRACT
Exhibitions emerge from the conjunction of innumerable narrative, social, ethical, political, economic and technical circumstances and conditions. This is to say nothing of the effects of contingency, which today are as likely to be mediated by a museum or exhibitions manager, or an educationalist, as a curator. Distinct from other museum professionals, curators ideally bring to their practice historical circumspection, a self-conscious awareness of the theory of their practice, an understanding of how meaning and knowledge are negotiated and mediated, and a finely tuned and trained sensitivity towards the process of cultural translation, as well as scholarship based on cumulative and specialised knowledge. While all curators might reasonably be expected to curate, not everyone who curates is necessarily a curator. The relationship between curators and exhibitions is however complex and neither the analogy with authors nor with directors adequately describes this aspect of their work. Whatever the practice in the past, the tendency today is for curators to work as part of a wider team designed to fulfil the multiple agendas and increasing commitments with which museums have been charged, and which are necessary to achieve high and competitive standards of presentation, realisable only through the utilisation of new technologies, good design and adequate scientific support.
