Forms of caring

The article examines the issue of art curatorship by looking at two extreme understandings of the practice that derive from the different meanings of the Latin word ‘cura,’ implying diverging valorizations of so-called cultural artefacts. In the first case, curatorship is primarily oriented toward safeguarding the material permanence of cultural artefacts; in the second, it is mainly focused on the effervescence of their semantic dynamics. On the one hand, it involves a set of practices whose aim is preservation, that is, reducing the risks of the material degradation of heritage. On the other hand, it designates a set of practices that keep up with contemporary interpretive currents and further contribute to and enhance these meanings, as exemplified by the central role that the figure of the ‘curator’ has assumed. Owing to the curating vocation as a discipline of ‘meaning care and social therapeutics,’ the semiotic method can play a significant role in analyzing and evaluating these different paths, both from a theoretical point of view and through examining emblematic case studies.