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COURIER photo/Gabriel Fenoy
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| Director/Curator of Pitzer Campus Galleries Ciara Ennis stands inside the Nichols Gallery at Pitzer College. Along with Pitzer Associate Professor of Media Studies Ming-Yuen S. Ma, Ms. Ennis is curator of the exhibition Narrowcast: Reframing Global Video 1986/2008. |
Engaging her audience: Pitzer procures new gallery director
Ciara Ennis, who is in her second year as Director/Curator of Pitzer College’s Art Galleries, compared her exhibits to “watching classic Noir thrillers” in her Curatorial Statement.
“I attempt to create the same rush of excitement that is present in abandon, but equally important are the less dramatic and quieter moments that create more contemplative spaces, inspiring introspection and the revelatory insight,” she wrote.
Ms. Ennis’ approach to curating is unique, for one because she was originally an artist rather than an art historian. “I am not interesting in proving an historical thesis,” she said. “I want to create a visually interesting show that can engage the audience.”
In the essays she writes about her exhibits, Ms. Ennis makes connections to the outside world rather than to the art world. For example, in 2005 Ms. Ennis curated a show called “Still, Things Fall From the Sky” at the UCR/California Museum of Photography.
The show featured works that somehow incorporated “logically explicable, though nonetheless emotionally incomprehensible” moments and events, she wrote in an essay for the exhibit. Instead of exploring historical approaches to this subject, Ms. Ennis used her essay to consider why people are so taken with phenomenon like frogs falling from the sky. She related the work in the exhibit to the philosophical tension between reality and the ideal, which “has much to do with the desire for immortality born of a God-like power to re-craft the world to one’s own specifications,” Ms. Ennis wrote.
A common mistake for curators, Ms. Ennis said in an interview, is that they don’t do work that’s interesting to them. “The most important exhibitions are autobiographical. You have to be obsessed, or else why bother doing it?”
Ms. Ennis originally attended art school as a painter, but found that being an artist made her too isolated. “I wanted to be the best I could be, the best in the world,” she laughed. “I was taking it too seriously, becoming more and more self-critical.” (story continues below)
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COURIER photo/Gabriel Fenoy
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| Ciara Ennis, director and curator of Pitzer College’s art galleries, is illuminated by a video piece from the Pitzer exhibition Narrowcast: Reframing Global Video 1986/2008, which moves to the LACE in Los Angeles in December. Ms. Ennis attended the Royal College of Art in London and is in her second year as Director/Curator at Pitzer College. |
In 1996 she enrolled in a two-year curatorial program at the Royal College of Art in London. The first year consisted of classes in art theory and history as well as travel to museums around Europe. In the second year, the 11 students in the program worked together to develop an exhibition called “The Campaign Against Living Miserably.” Students were also required to write a thesis and work at a museum as an intern.
Ms. Ennis’ internship was at the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA, and after her 6-week stint was over she was invited to stay on. Ms. Ennis gained experience at the MoCA and in a variety of other contexts, and in 2005 she became Curator of Exhibitions at the UCR/California Museum of Photography. The Director was on leave and had not left a program. “It was a blank canvas,” Ms. Ennis said. “Certainly a sink-or-swim situation. I had three floors to fill.”
In 2007, Ms. Ennis became Director/Curator of the Pitzer Art Galleries and Adjunct Professor for the Art Department at Pitzer College. She describes the gallery as “an experimental lab-space,” which gives her the freedom to create exhibitions about any subject in any medium.
Ms. Ennis’ current exhibition is a collaboration with Associate Professor of Media Studies Ming-Yuen S. Ma called “Narrowcast: Reframing Global Video 1986/2008.” Ms. Ennis says she “is not a video scholar,” and this show is the opposite of a historical study. Instead of an inclusive survey, the exhibit features five videos from the 1980s paired with five contemporary works. According to Ms. Ennis, the videos fit loosely into five tropes: embroidered narratives, autobiographical confessionals, restaging histories, documentary and reportage, and trance and ritual. “Narrowcast” is on display at the Pitzer Art Galleries until November 23, and at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) from December 6 to March 1, 2009.
As a curator, Ms. Ennis is constantly seeing and evaluating art. She considers three requirements for a work: “formal dexterity, a profound and convincing narrative, and a connection to the social political landscape.”
“Great art reflects the world we live in and goes beyond itself,” she said.
—Rose Haag
