What we need curators for

 

General Photography

In the July 12, 2012 issue of The New York Review of Books, there is an article by Zadie Smith entitled “North West London Blues.” In it, the author mentions a small independent book shop, run by a woman named Helen. Helen, we learn, is “an essential local person,” with the “essentialness” defined as follows “Giving the people what they didn’t know they wanted.” Isn’t that a fantastic description of what a good curator should do? It also is the perfect antidote for Eli Pariser’s “Filter Bubble,” the observation that the internet is making us less smart since it increasingly gives us what we want (more accurately: what we know we want, we know we agree with).