5 - The “gatekeepers” – curators

Summary

The group of curators consists of museum directors or head curators and of curators of Israeli art. Museum directors or head curators are appointed by boards of directors consisting of different public figures with the participation of Ministry of Education officials and representatives of Municipal Cultural Departments. It is museum directors and head curators who appoint curators of Israeli art, though, this is also done with the approval of boards of directors.

The group includes people who began their career with an occasional appointment in a museum (usually a clerical position) in the period when the first museums in Israel appeared, and advanced to important positions in them, as well as relatively young people. These were appointed to their positions directly, as a result of an announced vacancy, or were personally invited by boards of directors or directors themselves; they filled these positions since the 1970s, when the founding curators had to retire and more general offices were split. The members of the former group in most cases either lack formal education altogether or have some education which is not related to the field of their activity; the latter are graduates of Art History or Museology departments in Israel and abroad, who have some experience as art critics, or as museum curators outside Israel. In any case, the two groups ascended to their positions of influence simultaneously with the rise of Conceptualism.