Whatiftheworld / gallery

Gallery artist Julia Rosa Clark has been selected as ‘Curator of the Year’ on Artthrob’s ‘Best of 2009’ list for her show Sing Into My Mouth at Whatiftheworld (May 2009). Sing Into My Mouth included enquiries into the nature of intimacy, desire, influence, exchange, memory/ false memory, self, autobiography, interpretation, poetics, contingency, dormancy and resurrection.

Below is an excerpt from the article:

“I pick Julia Rosa Clark for her curatorial effort ‘Sing Into My Mouth’ at Whatiftheworld/ Gallery in May 2009. The premise of this exhibition was for Clark, as curator, to avoid imposing a theme or thesis on the project at the outset, and rather to allow works and paraphernalia she encountered to suggest poetic trails for her to follow. Through this itinerant process of finding and following threads of relation between works, Clark ultimately assembled an exhibition that cohered oddly, according to its own existence.

I enjoyed her approach and the resultant show because it struck me as brave to abandon an armature of external reference as she did. I admire her project also because she treated curating as an organic, intuitive process that is sensitive and responsive to objects, whether or not they are artworks. I suppose the important questions this show raised for me are, firstly, to what extent do intellectual and intuitive impulses vie or comply with one another for expression in the curatorial process? And, secondly, what determines the inclusiveness or exclusivity of the curatorial eye?”

By Anthea Buys

Click here to read the full article on Artthrob