ABSTRACT
This article, touching on the sociology of art and the sociology of professions, is concerned with the conditions and modes involved in the transformation of the role of the curator-in France, in the first instance. While various morphological factors contribute to the crisis in the profession, expansion, increased authority and a change in the nature of exhibitions combine to offer curators, or at the very least several among them, the possibility of attaining the status of auteur. The hypothesis of an evolving schema, which introduces particularly the idea of deprofessionalization as a form of transition, is then reinforced by evoking a development comparable to the one we have observed in the cinema. Finally, the analysis of an important exhibition will permit us to illustrate the pertinence of the schema and to propose several possible evolutionary scenarios.
