All curators now

By Anthony Gardner

You may not have heard of "Curate Africa", but when it comes to ambition its organisers are in a league of their own. This "major project of photography and curation" encompasses the entire continent and aims to "mark a departure from histories of representation concerned with African people, places and realities". What this is supposed to mean is anybody's guess, but one thing is certain—the verb "curate" has come a long way.

Twenty years ago, it was a candidate for the least fashionable word in the English language, used only by a small band of art-world professionals, and evocative of dusty showcases in the nether regions of half-forgotten museums. Dictionaries, unless they ran to several volumes, didn’t even list it. The idea that it might become common currency would have been considered ludicrous.