I love the verb to curate. It implies something done carefully, lovingly and with great consideration. Curation is something done by museum experts, shop owners and anyone who decorates his or her home. The act suggests choices of thoughtful inclusion and exclusion.
So I am quite irked when the word curation is used cavalierly. When the writer thinks that by simply using the word, she has implied that care has been taken in the selection of objects. When I see that a grotesque hodge-podge of items offered in a shopping venue has been “curated”, well, I am ready to jump through my computer screen and down the throat of whoever wrote that. (possibly now might be the time when I should switch to de-caf)
Perhaps an example: a day or so ago, the online shopping site, Gilt Groupe, offered “a line of décor in that jetset style”, which had been curated by the “famous designer Matthew Patrick Smythe”.
Now I am not within the economic demographic to know who Mr. Smythe is and I am sure he is a wonderful interior designer (for some people. the room photos shown on the site looked a little too precious and insincere; i.e. books as objects). I wonder about the people who are buying this stuff online. Do they really like these things? Do these things fit in with what is already in the home? Are the items being bought simply because Mr. Smythe put them up for sale? Are you really going to put this on your mantle?
All of these items are random, like someone’s front yard junk sale. Curated? Hardly.
(readers, i am sure you are just as shocked that the high prices are not accompanied by any historic documentation as i am)
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