Curator — Christian L. Frock

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The root meaning for curator is cura, Latin for “to care.” Curators care about the details, from vision to nail to Infinity.

I have organized exhibitions, site-specific installations, new commissions, public artworks, performances, public programs, artist multiples and special edition projects, and a wide variety of interventions in a broad number of venues, including grassroots galleries, commercial galleries, art fairs, universities, museums, historic sites and national parks. I am particularly interested in legacy sites — and how we advance by what we remember.

As an independent curator, my work is collaborative by nature. I have worked with organizations of all scale, including CCA’s Center for Art + Public Life, Kala Art Institute, Headlands Center for the Arts, MIlls College, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Southern Exposure, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Invisible Venue, my DIY curatorial enterprise from 2005 to 2015, presented art in public spaces, online and in the built environment, with and without permission. I received formative early support from an Alternative Exposure Grant awarded by San Francisco’s Southern Exposure, in conjunction with The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, in 2009.

Prior to working independently, I held leadership positions at commercial and nonprofit galleries in Palo Alto, Oakland, and San Francisco (all San Francisco Bay Area). In these roles, I organized an artist membership base of 1,000+ artists, exhibited work at international art fairs in Brussels, London, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York; and contributed essays to publications for artists Carolyn Meyer, Julie Heffernan, Chester Arnold, and Masami Teraoka. I also developed public programs with Youth Speaks and California Lawyers for the Arts.