In this morning’s New York Times Fashion column, Dress Codes, David Colman announces that the subdued artiness of the art dealer and the curator is the look – the sensibility, if you will – of this Fall.  That seems accurate.  As we all know, curators, and the word ‘curating’ (as in, “curating this morning’s breakfast was a challenge: I didn’t know if the Kix or Apple Jacks better formally engaged the cereal bowl as a space.” or, “Dude, I am curating a line-up of good bands at Union Pool next week, you should try and make it.”), are so hot right now, in the Mugatu-ian sense.  Zoolander II should surely include the caricatural contemporary curator as aloof, obscurantist, neo-Marxist yet always late for a dinner with the aristocracy, and effortlessly fashion-forward.  Massimiliano Gioni should have a cameo as walk-off audience member.

First I would like to preface that the particular fashion sensibility in question here belongs primarily to younger curators, by which I mean those under 50.  I’m not being ageist, this is just what I see.  Sure, Okwui Enwezor is a very fashionable man.  But, look at any picture of Lucy Lippard, Seth Siegelaub, or Walter Zanini from the last ten years.  What do you see?  Fleece vests, check, cargo pants, check.

That contemporary curators are style-conscious should come as no surprise.  They usually possess a broad enough familiarity with visual culture, and dare I say the ‘creative industries’, to know what’s louche, what’s gauche, what’s haute, and what’s hot.  They travel a lot (the lucky ones anyway), and are exposed to both street culture in other urban centers, as well as — and this is my unqualified theory here — a lot of European airport businessperson chic, which I think informs their style.  European airport businessperson chic is civilized and clean, but nothing too delicate can be worn, as it would surely crinkle over the many hours spent in transit.  Curators, who don’t make as much money as businesspeople, have to be fashion forward, but comfortable in economy class.

Curators also align themselves with artists.  And although they may not have to do the boho-dance (as Tom Wolfe described it in The Painted Word) as much as dealers and collectors, their style is naturally going to be influenced by the avant-garde artist, who began to dress in rags and eccentric cuts during the middle of the 19th century, not just because he was poor, but to shock and differentiate himself from the bourgeoisie.  The increasing degree of professionalism in the wardrobe of the curator, however, has led to an aesthetic distancing between curators and artists in terms of fashion.  The professionalization of curating, which is probably correlate to the collapsing boundaries between curator, dealer, galleries, consultant, and web-based entrepreneur, also has had an influence on color palette.  Look at the grays, blacks, and browns in the Calvin Klein and Raf Simmons suits David Colman writes about; this palette, during the mid 19th century, denoted middle class status, as it evoked authority, seriousness, responsibility, respectability.  As an aside, it is more than likely that the subdued and minimal fashion sensibility of the curator reaching the threshold of fashion zeitgeist has something to do with the last year’s economic situation; it is time to be minimal, rather than opulent; dark in palette, to reflect our mood and worry about the future; tight in fit to reflect our desire for protection and reassurance, our collective paranoia; arty because we must align ourselves with anything but the profane worlds of finance and politics.

Regarding the effortlessness of the curator’s look: the effortlessness of the curator’s uniform should not be confused with that of the artists; the ostensible effortlessness in a curator’s wardrobe is actually a touch of scholarly slouchiness.  After all, most of these people have spent a good many years on rural campuses in groups of fifteen or twenty, isolated in specialized reading-rooms the size of the one at the New Museum, and rarely, if ever, coming within eyeshot of the undergraduate mainstream.

As the contemporary curator has been getting more and more attention in the last twenty or thirty years, he/she has also come to occupy some post in the hierarchy of hip.  One thing I think this is attributable to is that curators hang out with artists, and many artists happen to be photographers.  Some of these photographers are fashion photographers.  Fashion photographers like to take pictures of artists and the people they hang out with, which then, when magazines like Purple and selfservice and NYMag and V publish these pictures, the osmotic process occurs by which curators become fashion plates.  The New York Times has been quite on top of this trend; they loooove curators.  All curators.  They love Massimiliano Gioni. They loooove Neville Wakefield. They looove Matthew Moravec and Kyle Thurman.  They love Lauren Cornell. There’s nothing wrong with this.  But, one thing I gather is that in American newspaper journalism, unlike on the other side of the Atlantic, there is still a high degree of niceness towards contemporary curating.  Compare this with a recent article by Ben Street for art:21, on the sentiments often shared by newspaper critics on European curators, which reached heights of vituperativity towards Nicolas Bourriaud after this years Tate Triennial.

Here are some pictures:

from selfservice

also from selfservice

Stephanie Moisdon

Elizabeth Neilson in Yojhi Yamamoto's lookbook

Hand Ulrich Obrist, da man wit da plan

Kaat Debo, super hawt

Massimiliano Gioni in gray sweater and modest watch

Leanne Sacramone

via NYTimes, fall 2009's look