ABSTRACT
The curator of art is traditionally referred to as a guardian, as well as a person who controls and builds exhibitions. On the one hand, their competence is often compared to that of a scientist, researcher, or manager, but on the other, they have intuition, fantasy, and curiosity. The curator is a figure who also creates senses and values, establishes and subjects them to interpretation. The curator makes romantic choices between fantasy and creation, and the reflection of this in reality. Their character in the art system is the border between the interior and the exterior, between limitation and limitlessness. Is it possible nowadays to look at the figure of a curator of art as a romantic hero? This chapter discusses the problem of alchemist thinking in relation to the paradigm of contemporary curatorial practices, based on the example of selected fragments from the life of the Polish–Styrian curator Ernesta Thot.
