In my opinion, Minor Curating and Major Curating need to be contrasted. On Wednesday, I went to Talbot Rice Gallery and Rhubaba gallery. By comparing these two places, I think Talbot Rice Gallery is major example and Rhubaba gallery is minor example about Curating.
“Talbot Rice Gallery is one of Scotland’s leading public galleries of contemporary visual art.” (The University of Edinburgh, 2022)
The exhibition I went to this time is QiuZhijie. Qiu Zhijie’s exhibition is held at Talbot Rice Gallery ‘s historic Georgian gallery. It is obvious that Qiu Zhijie has combined the map with the Chinese military idiom. This exhibition, to some extent, reflect the character of the monument and counter it in their own way. “While monuments do highlight historical connections, they can never replace public and individual responsibility for critical recollection and remembrance.” (Thea and Micchelli, 2009) Besides, in the map drawn by the artist, you can shine a purple flashlight on the picture and the English font will appear.It’s a good way for non-native Chinese speakers to understand the meaning of the picture. ( Figure 1) 
Figure1 Qiu Zhijie’s painting after being irradiated
“Minor Curating keywords: humour, humility, Curating, biennale academicism, post – postmodern, irony, nonsense, global/utopian, local/incomplete, productive, disjunctions, curator as prism, photographic, abstraction.” (Hunt, A. ,2010)
“Rhubaba Gallery and Studios is an artist-run organisation in Edinburgh with annual programme of exhibitions and events. ” (rhubaba.org, n.d.)
Since Rhubaba Gallery’s gallery and studio closed in 2021, and I couldn’t find information about recent exhibitions and events on their social media. So, I just follow them on instagram. Then I went to its website, and when I checked its website, there was only one about job recruitment in 2023.（figure 2）I’m sorry to see that Rhubaba Gallery is in a difficult situation, but I have to admit that they are a good team, they have big dreams and they are trying to grow and survive.
Figure 2 Screenshot from Rhubaba’s websit
To sum up, I think that Minor Curating and Major Curating are relative and temporary to some extent, and perhaps one day Rhubaba Gallery will also be Major Curating. But I quite agree with Hunt’s description of minor exhibitions. Irony is a good means of artistic expression.
References
Rhubaba.org. (n.d.). Rhubaba | Information. [online] Available at: https://www.rhubaba.org/information [Accessed 19 Jan. 2023].
Hunt, A. (2010) Minor Curating? Journal of visual art practice. [Online] 9 (2), 153–161.
Thea, C. & Micchelli, T. (2009) On curating : interviews with ten international curators / by Carolee Thea. First edition. New York, N.Y: D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers.
The University of Edinburgh (2022). Talbot Rice Gallery. [online] The University of Edinburgh. Available at: https://www.ed.ac.uk/node/7012 [Accessed 19 Jan. 2023].
