Research is a role intimately connected with that of being a curator. Whether investigating artworks to be acquired within a collection or seeking out the “rising stars” of the art world, research plays a central function within curatorial practice. Traditionally, curators would have spent years researching and developing an exhibition's concept through detailed analysis of art history, collections, a group, or movement; the term itself echoes the etymology of “research,” which can be traced from the Old French “recherché” and came to mean “to look for with care” during the sixteenth century. The vast majority of contemporary art curators however, are not typically afforded such extensive research time and increasingly exhibitions are a combination of a curator's “research interests and market interests.” Given this widely accepted role of research within curating, we see today increasing recognition of the “curatorial” as a potential mode of action-research of and in itself.

Curators of contemporary art conduct research through a broad range of methods. From collection study, reading widely across art history, philosophy, critical texts, pop culture magazines, to novels and newspapers. They conduct research visits to exhibitions and artist studios, watch cinema and other types of performance, network with those outside of the arts such as academics and increasingly through the web including social media platforms such as Instagram. Curating is considered a practice which is “responsive” to ideas and urgencies. This may be a particular artist's work, a certain trend or phenomenon in art making, or a response or interest to a social, political, environmental, historic issue that the curator sees reflected in the work of artists. Curators of contemporary art tend to commission artwork; the primary form of research tends to be engaging with artists, studios, galleries, and exhibitions as well as other curators, arts professionals, and academics. These more “relational” or social forms of research, also described by curator Jean-Hubert Martin as “fieldwork,” translate readily into inclusive curating.

This chapter describes how to support inclusive curators to undertake effective research and inform their exhibition and curatorial strategies through research visits.