Curating and the End of the Professions

The terms ‘curate’, ‘curating’ and ‘curation’ are used broadly in contemporary culture, associated with such activities as blogging and cooking, with an apparent disregard for the education and training of professional curators. This article argues, however, that ubiquitous references to curating do not simply appropriate the identity of the ‘real’ curator, but can be more fully understood in relation to the changing conceptions of work described by economists and legal scholars. In this light, re-articulations of curating attempt to negotiate both the declining status of the professions and the increasingly uncertain nature of employment.