Interview
Valerie Smith interviewed by Barbara Clausen, March 13, 2020.
Valerie Smith is a freelance curator and writer based in Berlin. In this interview, she discusses her role as director of exhibitions and senior curator at the Queens Museum of Art in New York, where she curated the 2003 exhibition Joan Jonas: Five Works.
Transcript
- “Valerie Smith interviewed by Barbara Clausen, March 13, 2020 (Interview Transcript).” Joan Jonas Knowledge Base, Artist Archives Initiative, 2021.
Abstract
The interview begins with Smith giving insight into how she first became aware of Jonasâs work in the 1970s while a student at Hunter and Barnard College. Smith goes on to describe how she first developed the idea for a Jonas exhibition at the Queens Museum [00:00â11:43]. She explains that instead of conducting her own research for the exhibition, Smith let Jonas have free rein and decide which pieces would be shown. She discusses showing My New Theater and early video works, including some new footage that had never been shown [11:44â19:43]. Clausen then asks how the exhibition fit into the programming the Queens Museum at the time. Smith describes how she felt an urgency to do this show, but was worried that people would not come to see the exhibition because of the Queens Museumâs location; she explains how she unsuccessfully sought out a collaboration with institutions in the city to remedy the situation [19:44â25:00]. The interview then evolves into a walkthrough of the exhibition, as Smith provides a sequence of the works that were presented [25:01â29:10]. Smith also describes working with Electronic Arts Intermix to access Jonasâs video works and creating an objects checklist for Organic Honey with the Queens Museumâs registrar [29:11â31:05]. Moving on, Smith speaks about the lighting of the show. She emphasizes that she let Jonas have control because she did not want to interfere [31:05â34:09]. Clausen points out that the exhibition provided a lot of materials to guide the visitor, and Smith explains that this kind of mediation was common for the Queens Museum. The two further speak about the opening of the show and its reception [34:10â36:43]. Smith describes Jonasâs performance of Lines in the Sand, which took place in the Queens Museumâs theater [36:44â40:52]. Smith then speaks about the concept of the catalogue and the process of putting it together [40:53â45:17]. In regards to documentation, Smith recalls wanting to make this exhibition unique: this led to the idea of releasing the catalogue after the opening to include installation shots [45:18â50:03]. The interview ends with Clausen asking Smith what curators should know in order to curate Jonasâs work. Smith stresses that documentation is very important not only during the exhibition but also before and after. She also underlines that young curators need to be considerate about their actions and think about how their approach can play into the reading of the work. She asserts once more that the best approach is to give artists a lot of freedom [50:04â54:15].