ayne Baerwaldt is the Director and Curator of Exhibitions at the Illingworth Kerr Gallery at the Alberta College of Art and Design. Previously, he directed the Power Plant in Toronto and Plug In ICA in Winnipeg. Baerwaldt acted as Co-commissioner and Co-curator with Jon Tupper for Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller's double award-winning production, The Paradise Institute, at the 49th Venice Biennale. It marked the first time in 50 years of Canadian participation at the international art exhibition that official prizes have been awarded to Canadian representatives. Baerwaldt is curator of the Zone-B Exhibition at the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche in Toronto, Canada. In the summer of 2008, he curated Shuvinai Ashoona and John Noestheden for the Stadthimmel (city sky) for Klaus Littmann's major public art project in Basel, Switzerland. His writing is published widely and Baerwaldt is the only Canadian member of the Exhibition Committee of Independent Curators International in New York.

Art Interview: What personally motivated you to begin a career as a curator?

Wayne Baerwaldt: During the 1980’s a cultural war was happening. There were funding cuts and a reduction of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. In Toronto, Canada films were actually edited and censored rather than being given an age restriction. A lot of visual material was considered outside the boundaries of good taste and was not accepted by public support organizations like the arts councils. Moral and aesthetic boundaries were being set for us and I found this amazing, strange and ridiculous. I was very much against this repression and I was intrigued by its boundaries. So I began to work outside of these boundaries and thankfully today they no longer exist.

Art Interview: What forced these aesthetic restrictions to break?

Wayne Baerwaldt: Largely it was due to the intense commercial and logistic forces that invaded the art world. Every voice has its own niche today and there is a place and buyer for everything. In addition, the Internet has made everything that once was out-of-bounds very accessible. As a result these things have become less tempting or even run of the mill. You’ve got to go a long way to be an outsider as an artist today. I am not even sure that being an outsider means anything anymore because it’s no longer a real issue.

Today anything is possible; from live art to landscape painting. Painting is certainly recognized as a strong part of the commercial world. But I have found that a lot of painting is a response to the market place. I don’t think there has been a lot of expansion around the parameters of what painting can be.

Theo Sims The Candahar Installation An external view of the Candahar exhibit at the Alberta College of Art.

Theo Sims The Candahar Installation An internal view of the Candahar.

Art Interview: Do you feel that the art market is now more accepting of conceptual artists than it was in the 1970’s or early 1980’s?

Wayne Baerwaldt: Absolutely. There is a whole developed market for conceptual art that gives artists complete free rein. My interest is in public works that take time to develop and don’t produce a physical product. This is part of the reason why I work with the Alberta College of Art and Design. There I am helping to motivate a new generation of artists to create works that are not specifically made for the market. I see the school as a lifeline for a necessary part of the art world that is in the process of evolution.

Art Interview: How did you become involved with the Illingworth Kerr Gallery at the Alberta College of Art and Design?

Wayne Baerwaldt: After working for three and a half years at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto, Canada I realized that I didn’t want to just do fundraising. I wanted to return to organizing exhibitions, writing and having time to read. So when the job at Illingworth Kerr Gallery came up I was interested in the potential of the Alberta College of Art and Design. I thought it would be interesting be in the west of Canada because the area has a lot of support for culture. It is known as the Dubai of North America right now. I am interested in developing a concept similar to the Institute of Contemporary Art for the Illingworth Kerr Gallery. For example it could mirror the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles California or the University of British Columbia’s Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in Vancouver. It is an archive, a production center, an exhibition center and a center for publications. This is something that doesn’t exist in many cities in North America.

Art Interview: Did you approach the Illingworth Kerr Gallery with your concept or did they approach you?

Wayne Baerwaldt: They approached me for the job but they hadn’t conceived of an ICA within the center. I thought of it as a great opportunity. They haven’t moved ahead creating a new center yet, but it should be developed over the next 5 to 7 years.

Art Interview: Over the years you have curated in many different places including several established museums. How did you begin to curate internationally?

Stan Douglas Win, Place or Show 1998 Installation

I was in Winnipeg, Canada, which is a relatively isolated city like Minneapolis or Houston in the United States. I was also interested in exporting artwork but in Winnipeg we didn't have the same infrastructure that University of British Columbia could provide for artists. We had a lot of idiosyncratic artists coming up out of Winnipeg and I thought that their works deserved to be seen somewhere else, for example in Los Angeles. So I arranged support from the Arts Council, which supported bringing people in from all around the world, plus getting artists and curators out into the world. They supported that nebulous leap of faith activity. So it was kind of easy. Winnipeg had an environment for putting together projects. There was enough support from the public sector. The Arts Council was willing to support whatever we would consider cutting edge and we were able to find private interests usually based in the States that would support one project or another.

Pierre Molinier (French, 1900-1976) Le triomphe des tribades ou Sur le pavois circa 1965 Photomontage 14,60 x 11,50 cm

Though this a network of touring exhibitions developed and we were able to set up co-production projects. We learned how to make it work in the private sector, without waiting for the public sector to come on board. Tom Patchett in Los Angeles, who started Bergamot Station, was great at seeing value in projects and saying “Here’s $35,000 for this” or “Sure, I’ll give you $15,000 for that”. So, we didn’t have to wait around for Arts Council funding, which was really helpful. It took looking for possibilities for touring exhibitions and a “Do it yourself mentality”.

Art Interview: What would you consider your largest career success to date?

Marcel Dzama Last Winter Here 2004 20 x 16 Inches

It’s great to see those artists become influential through exposure of some kind, there are others too, like bringing Al Hanson back into the discussion about performance art and happenings.

Art Interview: How did you become involved with your current project at the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche?

Wayne Baerwaldt: Well, Jeff Goodwin at the City of Toronto called me and asked if I would have any interest in applying and he asked me what would I do if I became involved. A few weeks later there was an official call for submissions and I thought, well, I’ll just develop my proposal and see what happens. Given the red tape involved in the corporate zone, which is the area I will be the curator of, I wondered if we could produce a pig farm or the Magnetic Laboratorium there. I am interested in bringing in large, messy, performance art works that involve artists, performers and the public, where you can’t always determine who’s performing.

Kelly Mark Horroridor 2008 Video

Matt Masters & Terrance Houle Don Coyote 2008 Performance Art, Multimedia Installation, Musical performance with storytelling

Art Interview: I understand that the project Nuit Blanche started in 2002 in Paris, France and spread through different cities. Do you have contact to the original Paris exhibition?

Wayne Baerwaldt: No, I’ve looked at some of their material. They produced a public art spectacle with glitter and feathers and fireworks and lighting and bubbles and all of those theatrics. There’s something about the Nuit Blanche in Paris that I’m just not interested in. I’m looking for something more perverse and unusual. I am not interested in creating a happy spectacle. I’m not interested in the friendly clown outside McDonald’s; I'm interested in the scary clown.

Art Interview: I understand last year they had over 800,000 people attending.

Wayne Baerwaldt: They’re predicting over a million this year, so huge crowds.

Art Interview: As a curator do you work with collectors?

Wayne Baerwaldt: On occasion but not as a rule. I wouldn’t choose any of my projects on the basis of collectors support. I’m interested in people who are marginalized or ghettoized by the art market or shunted into a category.

Zone B Downtown Toronto South

Wayne Baerwaldt: It’s about a 15 by 20 block area, maybe a little more. It's a big zone. I wanted to concentrate all my projects in one place. Mies Van Der Rohe designed the tower by the plaza. It’s a great modernist building in the middle of Bay Street. I wanted all my projects to be on that one platform of the huge plaza, but I was told that there would be too much congestion because there will be too many people it would be impossible. My idea was to concentrate everything and make it very intense but now I'm supposed to spread everything out.

Art Interview: I assume that some of the projects are indoors and some of them are outdoors, is that correct?

Wayne Baerwaldt: Yes that’s right.

Art Interview: How are the buildings acquired?

Wayne Baerwaldt: I specified certain buildings I was interested in, everything from foyers to plazas to parking lots. In most cases Nuit Blanche would be the ones to approach the proprietor and discuss the possibility of an installation there. Most of places were donated that I know of. A lot of corporations have been getting into the spirit of the Nuit Blanche.

Art Interview: I imagine the logistics of organizing such a project would be mammoth. There must be a considerable number of people working on this.

Rita McKeough Slipping By 2005 Installation performance Photo © Kari McQueen

Wayne Baerwaldt: Yes exactly. Some of the spaces are easy, like the big Union Station which is certainly easier to work in than Grand Central would be, but still not easy, and the corporate entities who wouldn’t want 500,000 people streaming through the corporate lobby. It’s going to be very interesting to see what sort of access we have.

Art Interview: How did you select your artists?

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This oral history transcript is the result of a digitally recorded interview with Wayne Baerwaldt on April 10, 2008. The interview took place over the telephone between Berlin, Germany and Calgary, Canada and was conducted by Brendan Davis for Art Interview Online Magazine.