If there were a prize for bafflingly Kafkesque self-absorbed deviousness in the field of exhibition presentation, Tate Modern would surely win hands down for the rich panoply of curatorial guff that accompanies the new series of contemporary art displays in its Level 2 Gallery, which are dedicated to “showcasing” – vile word – “recent or new work by international artists not widely exhibited in the UK.” The displays in question, the first of which opened last week, will run continuously under the less than catchy collective title, “Untitled”. Each year’s cycle [italics] of displays, however – pay attention, this gets complicated – will “focus on a particular theme or tendency in contemporary art practice”. The hallmark of this, the first year’s programme, is said to be its focus on “works that explore the characteristics of public and private environments”. But such is the fatuous vagueness of the phrase, it could be said to encompass just about every work of art ever created, from the first cave painting to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling, from Rembrandt’s Night Watch to Dali’s The Great Masturbator, or Damien Hirst’s latest pickle.
So what all this boils down to is that the first series of “Untitled” exhibitions have in fact got a title, or more precisely a subtitle, albeit an almost entirely meaningless one, namely, “The Public World of the Private Space”. This was apparently thought up by some Tate Modern artocrat who is fluent in English. Perhaps the idea was subtly to evoke the wilful obscurantism of some jesuitically inclined Dutch curator of intellectually challenging art exhibitions (pronounced in a cod Dutch accent, “De Poblic Vold of de Privet Spess” has a certain ring to it.) As a last straw, placed delicately on the back of this tottering camel of over-complication, each separate display...
