DJs and Curators

     In looking for articles for the museums class, I came across an article called “A New Spin: Are DJs, Rappers and Blogger’s ‘Curators’?” This certainly caught my attention.  This is one of the introductory paragraphs. 

“The concert review described how the musician Ludacris featured guest rappers and DJs famous in the ‘80s and ‘90s in his own new recordings and live performances. Praising the inclusion of songs and appearances by other artists in the concert, the reviewer wrote, “A cavalcade of guests emerged to take the stage for a few moments each, a showcase of New York hip-hop history with a devoted fan as curator. It turned the show on its ear.”

      This article is basically questioning the use of the term curator, in this context. What does it mean to be a curator and is it limited to the museum profession or can it be used more widely? The author N. Elizabeth Schlatter, comments that the word ‘curate’ is being used more in the press as a general word for organization. Schlatter says that curating is much more than simply putting objects in order on a shelf.  As we all know curating is much more involved than that. Some say that the new applications of the term can be used in a business sense to connect the corporate and museum worlds more intimately. I wonder if this is a slippery slope that might end in everyone being a ‘curator’ and the actual meaning of the word being lost. So here is the question, do we embrace the new uses of this word in order to be more inclusive with the world around us? Or do we dismiss this new definition that could diminish what we do? The author closes with this, 

“Perhaps the key to the curator’s future is not just to embrace the term’s new applications but also apply others to the profession. Contemporary art curator Gerardo Mosquera said in Words of Wisdom, ‘Even if you can train your eye, you need a de natura aptitude to become that sort of visual DJ that we call Curator.’ So if Ludicris is a curator, perhaps curators should become DJs.”