Transcript for Episode 038 – Curator, Julia Tatiana Bailey, National Gallery Prague (Prague, CZ)

Published December 5, 2019

Full recording here: https://wisefoolpod.com/contemporary-fine-art-podcast-with-curator-julia-tatiana-bailey-national-gallery-prague-prague-cz/

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Matthew Dols 0:12
Please pronounce your name correctly for me,

Julia Tatiana Bailey 0:14
Julia Tatiana Bailey

Matthew Dols 0:16
And I assume you use the Tatiana because there’s another Julia Bailey.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 0:19
Oh, well, it’s just a more common name. And when I’ve started developing an interest in Russian art people were like, why are you interested in Russian art? So one of my middle names is Tatiana, it’s my grandmother’s name, who’s Russian. So it made sense to sort of absorb it into the name I use, and I really like it as a name. And now I have the issue that people assume I am Russian and start speaking Russian to me. And then I have to say, Oh, you know, I can speak Russian, but just just as someone who’s learned it as an adult,

Matthew Dols 0:51
Okay, fair enough. And so you are, you are from the UK. And one thing that always interests me is like, how do arts people creative people become two beings? Like is it nature versus nurture kind of an idea? So like, or your parents or your family members creative in some way? Did you? Were you influenced by a teacher or some experience? Like, how did you get to this career path? Yeah, so

Julia Tatiana Bailey 1:16
now that I’m kind of on the career path, it makes it a lot, it makes a lot more sense, because I look back and my grandmother is actually a Russian artist. So now I’m a specialist in Russian art, it makes a lot more sense. But actually, when I was younger, I was much more interested in music and languages. And I did my undergraduate and music. And it was through music that I came to develop an interest in the visual arts. I actually majored in musical composition. And my composition teacher had this big poster of Kandinsky above his desk. And I was always sitting there when we’re discussing composition and, and saying, and I think the word was called Symphony or some name like that it had a musical name. And I became really interested in this patron, I kept saying, Have you tried to play that? You know, do you? Do you have some idea of what it would sound like? Do you know whether it’s influenced by a particular piece of music or something Kandinsky was listening to. And so I kind of developed this understanding of how the visual arts and the Musical Arts are both responding to similar debate similar interest, interests and

Matthew Dols 2:27
creativity. Yeah, it all comes from similar places. It’s just different outlets.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 2:32
Absolutely. So it was through. So for me I, I was more naturally attracted to music and music as a practitioner, I play piano and saxophone and I can pose. And it’s through that, that I became more intellectually interested in the visual arts.

Matthew Dols 2:49
But I’d say as a practitioner, I’m a musician. And I looked through your CV, and we’ve had a little discussions that you’ve been, we’ve run in a little bit of a same circle with you, but we’re in Washington, DC for all the while, yes. And so that was with the Smithsonian.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 3:04
Yes, I was there for a year, which was fantastic. It was also because I actually did my PhD and my master’s part time was working. So it was fantastic year where I could focus full time for a year to finish off my PhD. And without that, I just don’t think I’d have been able to get so intellectually engaged with the subject matter, really delve into the archives, take that amount of time to to really look at the material. So yeah, it was a fantastic year, and there were about 2025, or 25 of us who are fellows just attached to the Smithsonian American Art Museum. So we were all in the same room all had our little areas or desks, and there was much there was a good feeling of community, you were engaging with other people’s work having intellectual discussions, it forced me to up my game, because American academic standards are really high. So it was really fantastic. Yeah. In comparison to the UK. Um, well, I think when doing a PhD, because the Americans have to do such a broad amount of things to get their PhD. So they usually have to learn languages, they’ve got to do exams, they’ve got to do teaching. Usually the courses are very long. So it’s usually between five and seven years full time wise to do a PhD in the UK is three years full time. And it’s just the faeces Normally, I mean for knots PhD or for non practical PhD, if you’re doing a science degree or

Matthew Dols 4:33
call an arts PhD or non practical.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 4:36
I’m thinking about if you did something like fine arts degree or you did, or you did a musical degree, then there’s a certain amount of actually kind of creating something and then writing more of a theoretical humanities PhD.

Matthew Dols 4:51
That’s fine. But that’s interesting because like in the United States, we look to the UK as like the preeminent academic structure like we I always look to the UK. But you’re saying that the ad, the academic sort of rigor for a PhD in the United States is a bit more intense?

Julia Tatiana Bailey 5:07
Well, I get the feeling that when you do a PhD in the US, you’re being trained to become an academic, you’re being trained to go into a university to teach yourself. So a big part of your PhD is training you up to be a teacher to, so you have a lot of teaching courses, you’ve got to kind of develop a wide understanding of the debates rather than your particular subject matter. Whereas I feel in the UK is much more focus on becoming a subject specialist in your particular area. And that’s why you do a lot of the developing to become an academic, I think, after you’ve got the PhD, and after you go into teaching, and you can do you can do teaching on the side teaching assistant work, but it’s much more open to what you’re going to do after your PhD. I think in the UK, it’s not less of an assumption that you’ll go into academia, I think,

Matthew Dols 5:58
okay, I mean,

Julia Tatiana Bailey 6:00
this is just a personal experience,

Matthew Dols 6:02
this entire podcast is just your personal experiences, it will not be held as canon. You can say whatever you want, this is all your only your personal experiences and all this.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 6:14
And I mean, I did it quite differently. Like I said, I, I studied part time. So I actually did my masters over two years. My PhD took six and a half years part time was working. So I was maintaining a career as well, a professional career. And yeah, so I I’ve had quite a different experience. You know, I used to occasionally I had to go to a lecturer to lecture and then I’d sort of run in at the last minute and sort of run out at the end, because you know, I had other things, other responsibilities. We

Matthew Dols 6:45
all have. Yeah. I had a time in my career where I was actually a roadie, where I toyed around with rock and roll bands. So I would literally like schedule all my classes Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And then I would go on tour Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then come back Monday morning, like driving back Monday morning to get to class at 9am. So we all do. It’s great fun.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 7:08
Yeah, no, I think I wouldn’t, I’m not sure I could have got through it, doing it full time. Just, you know, head down for three years. Just thinking about your subject. I think it would drive me a bit crazy. Because I, you know, I like to be active and thinking about a variety of things and doing using my practical brain as well, not just my, you know, one that’s in the clouds thinking about theoretical things.

Matthew Dols 7:34
Is that what you do every day? Now just thinking about? No, no,

Julia Tatiana Bailey 7:38
that’s that’s why I enjoy curating because it’s so varied. And it’s it’s so many parts to it. And it’s very practical as well, you know, it’s a form of project management in many ways. It’s, you know, there’s a certain amount of administrative side that no one enjoys, but needs to be done. kind of thinking about stories, everyone complains, like academics do. In a university, everyone complains that they don’t get enough time to research and to think so. So is the way

Matthew Dols 8:09
the idea of this podcast is I come from the United States, I’ve lived in the Middle East, I’ve lived in multiple places in the United States. I’ve been a professor, I’m a practicing artist. And then now I’m here in Europe. And I realized once I got here, that having been in academia, that I have no idea how the arts actually works. Yes, I’ve been off doing academics. And so the students keep turning to me like, hey, how can i blabbity blabbity? Blah, how can I get a curator? How can I need a curator? How can I get a gallery? How can I do this? And then of course, there’s the other questions, you know, curators go How can I meet people at museums? How can I find more patrons? How can we do all this kind of stuff? So I realize I have no idea.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 8:56
And you’re not the only one because I’ve been in? And you know, I’m sure, you know, more than you realize. But I’ve been in classes with academics and some of the things they say you’re just like, but this is not why when they’re kind of saying things about a wire curator has made this decision. And they always assume that it’s for intellectual reasons, or because of that, their understanding or theoretical position. And as a museum worker, you look at that, and you go, they probably didn’t have the budget, or there was probably you know, copyright restrictions or things like that. surance

Matthew Dols 9:31
was to travel costs money or the person who owns it or or institution that owns it just doesn’t like you all.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 9:40
Yeah.

Matthew Dols 9:41
Like there’s so much that goes into it. Yeah, I mean, the the whole idea that I named the podcast, the Wise fool, because basically what I what I came to believe is that everybody’s very wise, like, you know, your specialization and your thing very well. But there are lots of things about the arts industry, you don’t know same May I know my thing very well. But there’s a lot of stuff. I don’t know. Yeah. And I believe everybody’s like that. So what I’m trying to do is basically have a lot of conversations and hopefully pick out like, this little insight from you. And another little insight from somebody else and slowly sort of piece together some sense of how it all functions through lots of conversations. I don’t expect any one person to have everything because that’s ridiculous. They don’t, as much as I wish they did I want there to be a system. I wish there was just like a system to do it be so nice. Like, I was thinking for coming to this podcast. I was like, how do artists get on the radar of a curator for potentially being since you work in a museum will say in a museum exhibition? So how does that even happen?

Julia Tatiana Bailey 10:50
Well, museum curators, if they’re doing their job properly, they should be going out and looking for the artists as well, um, you know, it’s, I think that’s part of the job is to actually kind of go to galleries, go to see things, graduate shows, things like that. So I suppose you know, the first way is to get representation in some way, whether it’s a gallerist is going to show your work, because then they’re going to be doing the job of promoting you and making sure that they develop the relationship with the curators, and you know, that your work scene, but you could also self publish or you know, create your own exhibitions as well get your work out there. But of course, then it requires a lot of a lot of work. And, you know, some investment usually that detracts from actually creating the work. So, you know, and not everyone who’s an artist is going to be capable of doing that or want to do that. So while the funding to do yeah, you know, curators have very limited time as well, because of the restrictions on the job. You know, there’s so much that needs to be done. And everyone’s that was short staff. That’s all the way around. We’re

Matthew Dols 11:58
short on budget.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 11:59
Yes, absolutely. So I really enjoy meeting artists, I really enjoy seeing artists work, as well as that I’m very aware of not wanting to kind of make any promises or you know, look like I can definitely do something even if I’m excited about someone’s work, you know that I’ll have a hope of showing it in some way. But actually kind of going through the decision process of being able to put an exhibition and put it on and get the budgeting behind it. That’s a long process.

Matthew Dols 12:27
And that’s something I would like to hear about. My I’m somewhat aware of it. I’ve been involved with museums and galleries and things like this. But tell tell me sort of like your experiences of something, some sort of an exhibition that you were engaged with participant curator have that sort of went from idea to completion to exhibition, like, what are all the steps have what you know, because like, while you may love some idea, the board or your director, or the funders, there’s so many different layers of things that could easily fall through, regardless of any individual’s passion for something.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 13:08
Probably the exhibition I’ve enjoyed working on the most so far is when I worked at Tate Modern on the soul of a nation exhibition. So, subtitle says art in the age of black power, and it was from the mid 1960s, to the mid 1980s, basically, starting off with the march of Washington, and looking at how African American artists particularly was saying, How did they respond to the kind of fight for civil rights in the United States? And then it’s looking at the different debates amongst different artists, you know, how they felt they should they be representing themselves in their communities? Should they be producing the same sort of work that white artists were being celebrated for at that time?

Matthew Dols 13:49
Okay, slow down. Why did that? So when it started, what was the theme, the impetus that like began the idea of even creating that exhibition?

Julia Tatiana Bailey 13:59
So that was my colleague, Mark Godfrey, his working was interested in obstruction, really, he’s a specialist in abstract American art, particularly abstract American European art of the of that period of the mid 20th century. And he just privately started amassing this material about these debates among, among artists at that time about obstruction, and particularly African American artists. And so he came to it from quite a theoretical point of view, it was originally going to be some sort of anthology of texts, looking at these debates, so these little known articles people had written and discussions they’d had and they hadn’t been amassed in one place, because they genuinely been in small magazines or self publish magazines, you know, with small circulation. So he wanted to bring those together and then have the idea of develop, developing that into an exhibition. So what was what I enjoyed about that was the It was a very research based exhibition, which isn’t always the case, you know, other exhibitions are chosen because they decide to do a retrospective of a major artist and you know, it’s like the jack metti exhibition I’ve done now, which is the first one to be held in the Czech Republic. And that’s a very, very different sort of idea, you know, you know, he’s very well known artist. We were working with the foundation in Paris to put on the exhibition so we knew the collection of works we’d be bringing together and bringing in like, how does something like that come

Matthew Dols 15:33
about? So let’s start that one from the beginning of it like so did the did the gallery here in Czech Republic approached jack, the jack many foundation or jack many foundations sort of say, we would like people to have some retrospectives who is interested in in a retrospective,

Julia Tatiana Bailey 15:50
I think, because it was before my time, but I think he came out of the retrospective happening at Tate Modern. And that caught the eye of some someone in the senior management here. And they felt it was very strong exhibition it had performed very well it would be, you know, very celebrated. And, and that had been a joint joint project between the front passenger committee in Paris and Tate Modern, and yes, and formed ACCION. Their remit is to use these works to kind of develop, Jackman meant his name internationally. So I don’t know who made the approach to who but our Director of exhibitions began speaking for fundacio, about working together on the first big show of jack met his work to be shown in Czech Republic, not even the first big show the first dedicated exhibition to be shown in Czech Republic. But it’s tight. I think that was, you know, two, three years ago, it takes a long time, the gestation of these

Matthew Dols 16:49
projects, talking to my wife about this, she was like, how long does it take to put this exhibition together? And I was like, I would guess, probably two to three years for that particular exhibition. Yeah. But some exhibitions can take up to five years. 10 years? Yes.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 17:00
I mean, absolutely, absolutely. The harder it’s going to be to secure the loans, the quicker you need to get started. Absolutely. It’s funding but particularly if, you know, there were some artists and their works wherever they are in the world. They’re constantly in demand for loans, there’s always shows about them going on around the world. And, you know, obviously, these words can’t constantly being tall. Well, it depends on the medium. But, you know, some of the words need to rest they need to be looked after they need to go through conservation that no one wants to see them fall apart because they’ve been centered around the world. nonstops

Matthew Dols 17:37
Yeah, I saw that with the Leonardo da Vinci. Yes, they’re not certain things are not traveling. Because of fear of them being damaged.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 17:48
Yes. And they sent for TrueView. Man, and yeah, they’re not too happy about it.

Matthew Dols 17:54
Not at all. Alright, so when so when an exhibition, like I’m talking more poignant point of like, so let’s say you come up with an exhibition, what’s the process for you, as a curator who already works for this institution, you wanted to make an exhibition from scratch? So you? How does it work?

Julia Tatiana Bailey 18:14
So, obviously, let’s say I’ve had the idea, that’s even a longer process to come up with the idea or explain what interests you. First of all, but

Matthew Dols 18:25
but even when you come up with the idea, I mean, like, for instance, the do you have? Do you have to take into consideration before you even pitch it going? will people be interested in this? Or do you are you trying to? Are you a bit of more of a purist of like, I think this is great. And I think if we offer it, people will like it? Or do you have to tailor your pitches already to the potential of clientele.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 18:51
I take actually another direction, because I spent 10 years working in marketing before I moved across into curating. So my point of view will probably be to think about what is the institution? How do we want to pitch the institution? How do we want to present that to the public to the world? How do we want to what objectives are we trying to fulfill through this exhibition? And how does it link the museum brand?

Matthew Dols 19:18
So the programming of the museum itself? term program?

Julia Tatiana Bailey 19:22
Yeah. So I’d be thinking about, you know, I like exhibitions, ideally, that can link through to the museum collection, if it has a key has a collection, because that’s a very important part of the museum’s work, but often it’s under discussed and it’s under recognized by the public so I think also it’s kind of answers that question of why so if you’ve got work by the artists or some artists that are in the collection, or it’s an opportunity to build the collection, so to actually acquire works through the exhibition, because they linked to other works in the collection or, or gaps that you’re trying to fill, you know, National Gallery progress Trying to fill gaps in the sort of 1960s 1970s artists that we didn’t acquire at that time because the political situation, but a very important artists in terms of Czech heritage and Czech national identity. So you’ve got to consider all of those things when you’re when you’re developing your ideas as well.

Matthew Dols 20:21
Okay, so let’s say you came up with an idea. How does it go?

Julia Tatiana Bailey 20:25
So, you’re thinking about the space? I’m sorry.

Matthew Dols 20:31
You’re just like, Are you kidding me? It is such a big idea.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 20:36
Yeah, I think it’s important to have from the outset to think about space, and what space it might be in. So what gallery space because then you need to think about size, and the scope of what you’re going to do. And you know what’s reasonable? And that so you do need to think early on about what funding you think you might get for it? Because obviously, that’s going to affect again, your ambitions for the exhibition.

Matthew Dols 20:59
Sure. Yeah. more funding bigger space.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 21:01
Yes, exactly. And then, early on, I try and identify the works that I think we want to incorporate in. So we, which are the really key words, obviously, you’re doing a lot of background reading, you’re going through, going for a kind of National Gallery library, and the Czech National Library and any other kind of important collections, reading all the previous books and catalogs where these artists, or artists are artists, shown to really get a sense of exactly what their work is to see as many of the works as possible, going and seeing the works in your collection.

Matthew Dols 21:40
A little part of that, like, I’ve always been under the understanding, and maybe I’m wrong on this. That basically, like when a curator is a head curator of a particular exhibition, basically, they become a master of all knowledge about that topic. During the time of coordinating that exhibition. Yeah,

Julia Tatiana Bailey 21:59
well, I wouldn’t say a master, you know, you’re going to become a master if you’re in, if you’re an academic specialist who’s engaged with that subject matter for decades. I think the thing about curators is, if they’re doing multiple exhibitions, they’ve got to develop their knowledge and quickly and think about how they can communicate that to people. But unfortunately, you generally don’t have the, the opportunity to really engage as deeply as you’d like. Okay, so

Matthew Dols 22:29
just to be clear for the list, sort of what we’re alluding to on this was a, what you’re saying is, is like basically, at any given moment, you are probably working on a minimum, I’d say of about three to five exhibitions, that are basically sort of leapfrogging over the course of X number of years into the future. So you don’t you don’t have even the time or the resources or the energy to devote to any one of the exhibitions as much as you would like. Because you also have to be already starting to plan the next exhibition after that and next exhibition after that, simultaneously.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 23:03
Yes, absolutely. And you’re not just working on exhibitions, you’re working on collections, management, rehang of the permanent display, writing, going out and seeing artists, if you’ve ever got time writing articles for the bulletins, says, Yes, doing interviews, those sort of things. Yeah, so it would be great if you could actually sit down and ever read a book uninterrupted for a couple of hours. But that’s quite an ask, that’s why I usually go to the library to do this sort of thing, because then you have to be in silence.

Matthew Dols 23:35
Well, then there were also even like residencies, and travel grants and stuff to help young curators sort of get away from the day to day, hustle and bustle of their office and stuff to be able to actually devote some time and energy and money towards some research that they need to do as well.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 23:51
Absolutely. Yeah, those are great and, and to actually just go out and see the objects, because you might see pictures of it, you might kind of see it spoken about but until you actually see the objects, you can’t really get a sense of it, or how it’s going to how people are going to respond to it as well. But you know, unfortunately, it depends on the exhibition and where the works are and these sort of things and what resources you have available for travel but a lot of the works are going to be a bit of a surprise when they turn up because you won’t be able to see everything is dotted all around the world. So you have to make some decisions based on just seeing a photograph of it and and just the size details and whatever other information you can be given about it.

Matthew Dols 24:35
Alright, so moving forward. So you were you created your exhibition, you now thought about space and funding. What’s next?

Julia Tatiana Bailey 24:44
Obviously, you’ve got to work up a proposal. So some idea of your list of works, your main themes, how you kind of see the narrative of the exhibition. So what’s the walkthrough for people you know, what are the main sections Is it something chronological It’s something for Matic, you develop that as you go go. And you’ll change your mind quite a lot of the time as you go. And what’s the particular spin you’re wanting to put on this? This history?

Matthew Dols 25:13
Yeah, I mean, basically, it’s like, why why would somebody off the street come in?

Julia Tatiana Bailey 25:17
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think, you know, I think again, because I’ve worked in marketing for many years, I always have the audience at the forefront of my mind, I can’t say that that’s always the case. For every curator, as you said, you were talking about the kind of the more purist idea, that was a nice way to put it. But you know, some people are very engaged with their subject matter and don’t maybe think so much about about the audience coming in and and why it’s going to appeal to them. I mean, I think they should, but I think that’s a that’s a direction we’re going in for museums. So I think we’re becoming much more audience engage much more putting the audience at the forefront of the kind of process of actually developing these programs, which I think yeah,

Matthew Dols 25:59
there’s a long history of museums just being for you know, rich, white people, basically, were rich white men, as a whole. So I mean, the idea of basically trying to engage additional communities, youth, you know, whatever, sort of any sort of community that traditionally doesn’t go to museums, training, you do it because you know, I’ve constantly reading articles about funding from museums is going down the interest in museums going down the basically, the the rich white men that have traditionally funded and helps museums are all sort of dying off, and like it’s just not having. So you’ve sort of got to find new ways to get people in Or else, something’s going to change

Julia Tatiana Bailey 26:37
dramatically. Yeah, and I mean, I think it’s going positively because, I mean, obviously, that doesn’t sound positive. But in terms of the new young, correct curators and artists coming up, and how they’re trying to engage with people, I mean, museums have traditionally been places to impart knowledge and you know, someone has, who’s supposedly more intellectually superior is coming up with these narratives that they’re going to force you to subscribe to. And what I like now is you’re starting to see it’s much more a place for debate and it’s a place for people to develop their own ideas based on kind of their own personal experiences and how we’re engaging

Matthew Dols 27:20
in a way a lot of the like, statements that I’ve been reading in museums recently in the the placards on the walls, and the even the, the essays and the mat and the publications and stuff, they they’re a bit more approachable than they had been 2530 years ago, even though they were very, very intellectual, very, very academic, very rigorous in their like coating of this and knots and historicals, and they’re becoming a bit more approachable now than ever had in the past.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 27:52
Absolutely. And approachable doesn’t mean that the standards are any lower that they’re not underpinned by kind of strong,

Matthew Dols 27:58
it just it just makes it so that somebody who like me, I’ve got a decent amount of art knowledge, a lot of times I would walk in and be like, Oh, my God, I feel like an idiot reading this, like, I don’t even understand what they’re talking about.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 28:09
Yeah. And obviously, yeah, unfortunately, you still see examples of that I sort of show. I won’t name what it was not here in Prague in London not that long ago. And I was surprised because it was very much Oh, great. It’s one of those ones, where the person who’s put it on is trying to make everyone aware of how clever they are. But no one can understand what it is you have to you know, eat for. So

Matthew Dols 28:31
I remember going to Smithsonian as a kid, and like, there were a few exhibitions that I remember being like, I have no idea what these people are talking about. I love the imagery, and I love the artwork. It’s It’s beautiful. But I don’t know what what’s being said here, like, but and it seems like it’s changing. Like, yeah,

Julia Tatiana Bailey 28:47
I hope so. Yeah. Hopefully in some place. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. In some places, but I, yeah, a lot of the curators I see coming up and, and starting to get into positions where they can actually have a kind of have an effect on the entire sector. They’re much more engaged with those things. They’re much more open to debate, they’re less Yeah, then less eager to kind of prove how clever they are. And then more we get to actually kind of make sure people are enjoying the or not so much joint but engaging with the subject matter.

Matthew Dols 29:28
At the podcast is basically trying to learn how to navigate through all of the different channels that are, how to be successful in the arts, whatever that means. Whether it’s being a successful gallery, being a successful curator, being successful artists, how are they all connected? Like I mean, to a certain extent, I’m repeating myself but to a certain extent, museums seem like they’re sort of off on their own little island and how do curator institutional curators and institutions engage With the arts community at large,

Julia Tatiana Bailey 30:03
well, as I said, museums have the space, they have this space that attracts the general public. And they’re sort of the gatekeepers between the general public and the artist in many ways. And that’s the kind of primary display space, but also, it’s a brand and you’re associated with that brand. And like we were saying, you know, it by being in those exhibitions or being collected and held in the collection, that’s, that’s part of your CV as an artist, or we.

Matthew Dols 30:36
Okay, so then that lends it to it. I swear, we’re not getting to any completed answers, because, because ditional like, wait a minute, this other topic. So okay, how would I’m not saying here in Prague, necessarily. But so how does an artist get into a collection,

Julia Tatiana Bailey 30:53
I think it’s really focused on a curator, taking interest in the work and then developing kind of desire to acquire the work obviously, that requires the curator to actually have an acquisitions budget or access to bringing that work in or, or to see showing the work in some sense. I’m thinking of one of my friends who had one of his works collect, collected, and his work was shown in a gallery show in London. So from art school, he’d got picked up by gallery, they changed the work. The gallery had invited down the curators, the curator was had an acquisitions budget, because this was at the v&a that they wanting to develop their collection of photography, because and it was specifically with the exhibition in mind. So a rehang of the permanent collection showing this sort of history of photography. So they were on the lookout, this is, you know, the artists dream, the curator, actively going out and looking for things with a budget, and then acquired the work and included it in the show. So what was so he was very lucky because they inquired work, and they showed it straight away. Yeah, that is you’re shaking your head like, Oh, yes. If only

Matthew Dols 32:06
that one in a million.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 32:08
Yeah, yeah. And then he came down to drop off the artwork, and we went to a local Lebanese restaurant, we’re eating falafels with it. bisbing just on the floor, which I felt a bit uncomfortable about, but now it’s safely on the wall. So the wax in the basement?

Matthew Dols 32:23
Yeah, but I mean, that’s the thing is, is like, Well, okay, but beyond that. So let’s say there’s a curator who has an X acquisitions fund. Is it just the curator so they literally can a curator just go I love this work. I think it’s it should be in the museum’s collection, or is there a committee or a board group that somehow works on that? Or is it just curator loves the work? And they have the budget by it? Yeah.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 32:47
So a really good example of this is to tell you about what they do at Tate Modern, because I worked on one of the acquisitions committees, Tate has,

Matthew Dols 32:55
everybody wants to know what how Tate works.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 32:58
So Tate came up with this idea. About 10 years ago, I think, to develop these acquisitions committees that were particularly regionally focused. And because Tate wanted to become a position itself as a global institution that’s representing art globally, but in its collection, it was really biased towards West European and North American artists, a lot of Western institutions are and I don’t know whether they will borrowing this model from someone else. But what they decided to do was to go out and create acquisitions committees. So these are reaching out to wealthy patrons who have usually their own collection of art or have a particular interest on off in art from a particular region. Usually, that means they’re from the region and they’re doing it because they want to, you know, promote their national art. But you know, some people are from completely different region and just for some reason, they’d like to collect this work anyway. So well, tape has come up with about six or seven, I think seven regionally focused, focused acquisitions committees. So one focus on North Africa, Middle East, I was working on the one focused on central Eastern Europe and Russia. There was a Latin American one and African committee, Asia Pacific, so that was included Australia, Australasia, and kind of all Southeast Asia.

Matthew Dols 34:21
Did you just say Australasia, Australasia. thing

Julia Tatiana Bailey 34:25
it includes New Zealand? Yes, as well and the Pacific Islands.

Matthew Dols 34:29
Alright. Never heard that before. Go on. Um,

Julia Tatiana Bailey 34:32
so if we often joke. Yeah. Yeah. So we had these committees and the model they decided to do was up to 40 patrons from these countries or who had an interest not from these countries, and then you’d give a donation basically every year, so certain amount of money, and this money will be pooled. To acquire art from the region. So you’d have a budget of a few 100,000 pounds per year to buy art from the region. And then you’d have a committee of, or a small group of curators than a man managing that acquisitions committee. So our job would be to go out, and to what, firstly, to come up with a strategy document for which artists, we think from the region that we want to acquire, they could be historical ones, you know, so 1950s 1960s gaps in the collection, or contemporary artists. So that’s a case of reading, going out seeing work, traveling, you know, getting to know, have a broader view of this region, and then narrowing down thinking, you know, which, which artists do we particularly want to acquire. Also, it was things like, whether you could develop a relationship with an artist or state of the artist as passed away, whether there’s any, any pressures to acquire this work of the artist is getting elderly. And obviously, you’d ideally like to, you know, be able to acquire the work whilst the artist is alive and have be able to have those conversations with them and get them recorded. So you really understand the work. So you’d do all this research, come up with this strategy. And then you’d work with sometimes with the artists, sometimes with the artists or state, often through their galleries, or some gallery that’s representing them, identify so through those conversations, identify works that are available to buy. So some artists will have kept some work back in their career, if they’re an older artist, there was one Hungarian artists we work with. And we eventually quite acquired this work at Tate Modern that they’d held back because they saw it as really a really important part of their career, it was a moment that of transition in their career. And the artist had said he always wanted to hold this back and put it into a major collection so people could see it. And also it, you know, it then confirmed his legacy, he knew this work was being more be represented in this collection. So that’s where we forward thinking artists to do something like that. And then we, as we’ve kind of identified works, kind of thought about the budget, what we can buy sort of negotiated on the price. As part of this model at Tate we then present the acquisitions, to to the patrons, and then decide with them through this kind of day long meeting, what works we’d acquire and how we’d Yeah, and then we’d go through the process of bringing them in based on the votes for that. on that committee, we did a vote voting system. So that that was kind of, you know, that the patrons felt like they did have an active kind of involvement in choosing, but luckily, a lot of the patrons would then any leftover works, they often kind of get together and acquire them as, as donations and gift them. So you know, because you’ve built up a really good relationship with these people as patrons of art, but helping it to come into a public institution, rather than just through going into private collections. Although, you know, often they’re doing it because they want to build up their private collection, as well

Matthew Dols 38:14
as that does kind of give them a little bit of an insider track on like, we should buy this person before they’re put into this collection,

Julia Tatiana Bailey 38:21
well, you’ve got to be very careful. So you’re not actually allowed to tell people because there are very strict rules, particularly in the UK as a public institution that you can’t be giving commercial advice to.

Matthew Dols 38:33
Because that’s something that is a little bit of commercial is basically saying like these, because even if the people aren’t, let’s say bought that year, the other people that didn’t get bought out, it’s kind of get sort of tipping off the hand saying like, well, the institution is interested in these people. So potentially, in the next five to 10 years, this person will be

Julia Tatiana Bailey 38:51
Yes, except, I mean, we didn’t say when we were in the sort of negotiating stage and

Matthew Dols 38:58
it’s a difficult balance. Yeah,

Julia Tatiana Bailey 39:00
it is a difficult balance, it is a difficult balance, and we had to tread carefully and we have to be careful about our conversations and and not giving things away. I mean, if you’re sharing information in a kind of more public form, then then it’s okay. So by the time we were sharing that information, you know, it was if they wanted to acquire the works, the artist and the gallery would have already known the works were going to be required in the collection usually pretty much but you know, it is it was difficult thing it was also you have to be careful because other galleries are also sniffing around trying to acquire the same work. So we did have institutions when another leading gallery, you know, with another institution is trying to get the same work as the what if they get wind of the fact that tight is quite, let’s say there’s quite a lot of competition between the Pompidou and Tate so you have to be very careful not to

Matthew Dols 39:57
really use the Pompidou and tape

Julia Tatiana Bailey 40:00
Tip for acquiring works, because they’re both they’re both very focused on acquisitions from similar regions that, you know, you’ve got to be, you’ve got to be careful about what information you’re sharing with people.

Matthew Dols 40:13
so fascinating. I, that entire process that you just explained is exponentially more elaborate than I imagined it was. Yeah, so So never, let’s say pretty much never, it’s never about a single curator with a budget just going I love this, let’s put it in our

Julia Tatiana Bailey 40:29
well is the example I gave of my friend who was building, sold his work, his photograph, and that’s one curator had been given a budget to build this collection for this kind of rehang of the permanent collection. And so that’s the other side of

Matthew Dols 40:46
Yeah, you’ve got this incredibly elaborate multinational thing that the Tate is doing long term acquisitions programming, and then there’s sometimes just a single curator with a discretionary fund that says, I want this to collect.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 41:01
Absolutely. And there was, for instance, I was involved with the went to this some kind of planning meeting for the British Museum. And they were, were acquiring some, I think the show is going ahead now a few years ago, so it’s fun. They were they were acquiring worked for an exhibition about communism and communist paraphernalia, and particularly kind of working out of the medals team, I think so focused on currency and things like that. And they were kind of given a certain amount of budget to acquire these objects for this particular collection, which they were very excited about, because that’s quite a rarity to be given an acquisitions budgets to, to build up the show.

Matthew Dols 41:42
One question I generally ask people is the trying to find some advice, basically, I mean, the most basic of senses, what I’m always interested in are things that you experience that you’re like, oh, gosh, I wish I had known that. And I would not have done this, like something you would learn through a mistake or a misstep, or a misunderstanding even or whatever, some sort of, you know, some sort of advice for people who are trying to, let’s say, be a curator, because this is your expertise, that you’re like, Oh, yeah, don’t do that. Or, or, I made this horrible mistake, this thing, I recommend nobody else to do it.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 42:20
Um, well, it’s not the whole mistake. And I hope it will help in the long run. But I, I wish I did find what I want to do earlier on. So I graduated from music. And I spent four years working in entertainment, marketing, the music, industry, and theater. And then I decided to go into the visual arts. But by then I was already four years into marketing career. And it was very, very hard to move across. And so I worked for about 10 years in marketing. So I worked in numbers and seven, eight years in marketing and visual arts. And even though I was doing the masters and the PhD, it was really hard to move across into curating because people saw you as being on the business side. And actually, this isn’t, this is exactly the same. When I worked in theater, I met a lot of people there who were saying, Oh, you know, I work in Marketing, or I work in something behind the scenes, I came into this because I wanted to be a writer, or because I want to act or something like that. And I think the arts feel they’re surrounded by you know, people that are aspiring to be something Yes, aspiring to be creatives in some way, but or is Yeah, aspiring for another role. And then they they take the role that’s available. And there’s a lot to be said for that. But I think you’ve got to decide what you want and how much you wanted. Because I was determined I wanted to become a curator. But it’s been a very long path. And it’s still very frustrating, because I’ve had to take lots of sideways steps rather than moving up. And obviously, you’re seeing other people moving up because they’ve got onto their straight part off and you’re stood in this funny, circuitous route round. So I think, yeah, I probably wish I’d had a career coach earlier because I started doing career coaching about a year and a half ago, opposites. It’s not cheap.

Matthew Dols 44:19
When I was in high school, they gave us a little test an aptitude test on trying to tell us what careers to go into. They told me that my career was either curating. Okay, or mortician.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 44:32
Oh, yeah, I remember doing those. They always throw in a curveball. And I don’t know whether that was to try and persuade you even more, but you should go for the other career.

Matthew Dols 44:43
Yeah, I’m not sure I’m there. But yeah, yeah, we all take little random paths. I mean, I studied psychology. I studied Native American Studies. I did all kinds of different stuff on my path to finding this.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 44:56
Yeah. And I think it makes you a more rounded person and I think in the And all of those experiences are helpful. They all feed through and so what you end up doing, but certainly if you want to get into a very competitive field, then the earlier you can start getting experience and that

Matthew Dols 45:13
curating is very competitive. very competitive.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 45:14
Yeah. And if you kind of go off, you know, of path of it, it’s very hard to get back in often.

Matthew Dols 45:22
Yeah, me because I could picture an easy off path would be going into like the commercial in parts of it, because I have to tell you this, like, only when I arrived here in the EU, in the past couple years, did I ever even hear of independent curators curating at galleries? For percentage of sales? Have you ever heard of this?

Julia Tatiana Bailey 45:46
commercial gallery? national galleries? No, I haven’t. Maybe that should be my new career.

Matthew Dols 45:52
I thought it was ridiculous. When I first heard it. I was like, that’s sort of that destroys the purity of the curatorial industry. Like, yeah, they’re supposed to not be worried about sales.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 46:05
Well, curating is just such a like, fluid term nowadays. So yeah, I mean,

Matthew Dols 46:09
that’s the thing

Julia Tatiana Bailey 46:10
is I used to mean like keeper, and you know, it used to be

Matthew Dols 46:14
curators person in an ivory tower in an institution that just thinks all day basically.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 46:20
Well, in some curators purely focused on exhibitions, some of roving curators doing art, art fairs, things like that some purely focused on acquisitions. Well, that’s the thing. It seems like the research curators, which

Matthew Dols 46:34
were the curators has become much larger industry. In and of itself. It’s not what it used to be, it used to be, you worked for an institution or a private collection. And that’s pretty much it. Like those are pretty much the only roles 3040 years ago, now you can be independent curators, you can do all the things you just listed. I mean, there’s so much more variables in that individual career.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 46:59
And actually, yes, the actual job you’re going to be doing as part of it, whether you’re a project manager, whether you’re a specialist in you know, more conservation specialist, you know, they’re all, it’s become very broad, it’s very hard to explain what you do. And it also I think, that makes it very hard for you to identify what sort of curator you want to be. I feel like only after kind of what, five or six years whatever of doing this, you know, full time that I’m starting to realize exactly what I am as a curator and what what my definition of curator is, in the sense of my own career,

Matthew Dols 47:37
what is your definition of

Julia Tatiana Bailey 47:39
You shouldn’t have said that, because now I’ve got to answer it, I’ve realized What’s something that is really important to me is research based. curating. So actually finding stories may be under, under recognized narratives, forgotten histories, so going into archives and identifying those sort of those sort of stories and, and bringing them to the forefront. So having kind of having exhibitions and and attracting it, or attaching it to wider programming debates, conferences that make people think more about you know who they are, and muddying the waters, I’m really interested in the gray areas. So, you know, I’m interested in social history and how art is a part of that I knew that was my interest, you know, politics and society, and how art like links back to that or is a result of that and can contribute to that. But I think as a curator, I want to keep doing those sort of things. You know, I want to keep telling those stories. I want to keep asking the difficult questions.

Matthew Dols 48:45
Sounds good. I’m good. Good luck on it. But wait, you said that you’ve only been doing this for five years?

Julia Tatiana Bailey 48:55
Yes, because I was working in marketing the whole time.

Matthew Dols 48:58
Let me get this straight. You’ve been curious, sort of on the career path of a curator for five years, and you are now the curator of

Julia Tatiana Bailey 49:09
modern and contemporary

Matthew Dols 49:10
modern contemporary art at the National Gallery in Prague. That seems very fast to get such a position. Um, five years?

Julia Tatiana Bailey 49:19
Yeah, I think I mean, to be honest, where you where your curator it sort of depends and in the place and the opportunities when they become available. Also, what there?

Matthew Dols 49:29
Yeah, because I mean, people keep those positions for

Julia Tatiana Bailey 49:32
Yeah. And also also what they’re looking for this role came available. It was the first time they’d sort of advertised the role in English and they were specifically looking to kind of broaden the institution make it more international. So I think they were kind of interested in bringing bringing in an international staff. I’m kind of the guinea pig for this. And they specifically wanted someone with interest and experience in the 1950s 60s 70s Which is apparently something that there isn’t many people that specialize in that area here. Even in academia, but particularly in curating it’s, there’s more contemporary art curators, and there’s more kind of curators As of early 20th century. But I mean, even in, in the West, in Western Europe and the United States, it’s still not so much in the United States, of course, actually the 1950s and 60s as a key moment, but they love it. Yeah, but, but in terms of Western Europe, as well, it’s a bit of a while it was for many years to be photo quite unsexy periods. But I, maybe that’s why it appealed to me, you know, I thought, oh, there’s not many people telling these stories. But actually, there was. Yeah, exactly. It was the kind of gray area of in the 20th century, I guess.

Matthew Dols 50:49
My last question, most difficult questions I asked, this is the only question I asked every single guest. As part of the podcast, I’m trying to learn how an artist and a practicing artists can navigate and become successful in the arts world. So what I’ve done is I’ve created a quantifiable goal, a short term goal, though it may be long term, depending but the short term goal, that is, I’m trying to get a piece of my artwork, literally me on exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Okay, that’s my goal. And so what I asked everybody is for some advice on how to put my career track in the right direction to get to that goal. And whatever you tell me to do, I will do and I will include included in the podcast and keep everybody in a transparent way, knowing all my experiences, positive and negative of following your advice.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 51:48
Oh, well, so I’d have two answers. The kind of standard dance, so I guess, words, you know, I try and cultivate relationships with the modern art museum and try and identify key curators that kind of, you know, have influence over that which already Yeah, and of course, we started doing the research. second way is there was this film called sort of my date with Drew, have you ever seen that? It’s a brilliant film, this guy kind of came up with the idea of he wanted to get date with Drew Barrymore, who was just a random guy in LA. And so he basically made a film about trying to get a date with Drew Barrymore. And he filled up all these kind of crazy schemes and reenacted all these schemes for being hidden away.

Matthew Dols 52:38
That’s what I’m doing with this podcast, what I’m putting into the world, every single podcast that airs I want a peace of mind. And everybody’s gonna get to be part of so

Julia Tatiana Bailey 52:47
create an artwork that is as a result of that piece of that aim.

Matthew Dols 52:54
Oh, the podcast itself.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 52:57
Is that space? It’s an installation. Actually, we have a we have an artist represented in Tate Modern and Tao smackah. chaver. She’s a sort of Russian. I’m so

Matthew Dols 53:06
bad with name.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 53:07
Yeah. Russian artist. But yeah, she actually came to, I think when she was still an art student, she came to Tate Modern with a billboard saying I want to be in Tate Modern, as an artist, something like that. And she just paraded around and took photos and made it as a made it as a kind of artwork. And I didn’t know whether that work was collected. But certainly Her work is now collected. So it’s, it’s a nice little story that she started off doing that.

Matthew Dols 53:35
Yeah, that was bold. Oh, I’ve heard of the stories of like Julian snoball. Literally calling the curator every day for like, a year.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 53:44
And I don’t know how many people try and just put their pictures on the wall like yeah, you wanted sent improperly?

Matthew Dols 53:54
Well, the point is, I want to I want to learn how the art world how the industry functions and how to do it successfully, appropriately, legally, you know, how, how can any artists who’s listening to this podcast, say, okay, that’s a goal of mine. I use the museum monitor, it could be any museum could be taking, you know, institutional museum. How do they achieve that goal? That’s the idea is like how, that’s my short term goal, sort of a tangible outcome of this, a long term goal is learning how artists can CES create a sustainable living, because that’s the thing we all want. Yeah. Like, if I had a choice between, I could have a piece in the Museum of Modern Art, or I could make a living at my art for the rest of my life. But I can’t have both. I’ll take the living

Julia Tatiana Bailey 54:48
the living. I mean, it’s on the other side as well. You know, so many curators, it’s not a well paying job in most in most sectors and, and a lot of people are, you know, working dependently as well. And I think a lot of curators, I may have the dream of maybe doing it part time and doing more writing and more, you know, more of their own,

Matthew Dols 55:09
you have to do any of your own, like grant writing, and all this kind of stuff to get your projects funded and all their sources or their designated right grant writers here in the institution to do it for you.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 55:20
Um, there was a tight there was a development team here we have international partnerships team, but it’s quite a new team that’s been introduced about three years ago. So they’re starting to develop doing those sort of things as well. But yeah, you know, some institutions that they’re kind of bigger than this larger infrastructure there for kind of going after private money and donations, yes, they they have a team for actually in charge of getting money through any means possible. But that’s,

Matthew Dols 55:51
I mean, that’s the thing that makes it all go around. It’s always the money, the patrons, the government or whatever kind of funding and everything because like it, it just doesn’t work without it.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 56:01
Yeah, unfortunately, it’s the thing that people who love coming to a gallery and seeing the art is not the bit they really want to hear about. They want to acknowledge and they think it’s sort of pollutes their experiences, they want to think of us I think often, you know,

Matthew Dols 56:16
I grew up with the Smithsonian. Yeah, everything was free. I could literally just walk into all of those museums, and just like, it’s the people’s museum. Yeah,

Julia Tatiana Bailey 56:23
no, that’s fantastic. Yeah. And we have that in London as well, it’s such a

Matthew Dols 56:28
great world don’t have that. So

Julia Tatiana Bailey 56:30
but I mean, the London gallery galleries have that because they have a commercial wing, most of them. And it’s actually been proved that if you introduce ticket sales, you’ll probably lower the amount of people coming in to eat in the cafe and buying things in the shop. So actually, it levels out. And so you’re monetizing people’s time in the museum in different ways. So that’s probably totally killed everyone’s appreciation now, but it makes people feel like they’re getting something for free. But it they are actually, because of that they’re more likely to buy and then we’re more likely to spend more time there. So yeah, it is quite clever.

Matthew Dols 57:11
It is I mean, everything’s a business, everything needs to be paid for, in some way, shape, or form. So whether it means because like, if we sit here and say like, Oh, we want our museums for free, well, somebody’s gonna have to pay for that. So it’s good. Chances are, it’s probably gonna end up being attacks in some way, or the government’s gonna support it in some way. So one way or another, you’re gonna pay for a museum? Yeah, like, so whether you pay for it, literally out of your wallet, or whether you pay for it in the hidden in some taxes, or through some government budget or whatever, from somebody else. It’s got to be paid for the places need insurance, they need to have lights on, they need to be climate controlled. I mean, it’s just impossible. I mean, I have a friend who has a private museum in North Carolina, and they had so many problems, because it was this purely private museum literally named after the family. And so it was just theirs. And nobody else would give money to it. Oh, of course. Yeah. Because it’s their music. Yeah. Why would they recognition? Yeah. So like, why would it make sense? So they had a real tough time, like keeping the museum sort of momentum and going and building and growing? Because Well, nobody else would be willing or interested to give money or support it? Because it has somebody else’s name on it.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 58:27
Yeah, I suppose if you’re something like the National Gallery, you know, it’s

Matthew Dols 58:32
easier. Yeah. You could even award like, Oh, well, we’ll name the exhibition hall. Give us 10 million whatever’s

Julia Tatiana Bailey 58:39
Yeah, it’s interesting. I’m here in Czech Republic, because, you know, it’s a post communist country, they haven’t had those years of kind of commercialism that you’ve had, has been building over a long period in, in Western Europe, and certainly in the United States. Were these, you know, something that no more started as a private institution in 1929. with, you know, Rockefeller money and, and luckily, he

Matthew Dols 59:05
didn’t name it, Rockefeller. Yeah. Because then it was much more difficult to eat with it.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 59:11
Yeah. Who knows where but that was part of that was planned. Well,

Matthew Dols 59:15
thank you very much for your time.

Julia Tatiana Bailey 59:16
Thank you. It’s been really enjoyable.

The Wise Fool is produced by Fifty14. I am your host Matthew Dols – www.matthewdols.com

All information is available in the show notes or on our website www.wisefoolpod.com