Programmer and blogger Andy Baio thinks fans should commission work from their favorite artists (particularly through Kickstarter, where Baio is an adviser). His recent article for Wired is mostly about music and events, but micro-patronage could just as easily work for visual art. There are barriers in both cases—we’re talking about challenging entrenched power structures here! But why should wealthy patrons and board members have all the fun deciding which projects get funded? As an added bonus, fan-commissioned work would lend itself best to areas like public art, performance, video, and net art—exactly the kind of stuff that doesn’t sell to conventional collectors looking for trophy pieces. So, anyone want to go in on a Doug Wheeler with me?

Over on the Awl, Choire Sicha, “a former actual curator, of like, actual art and whatnot,” sticks up for a job title at risk of being overrun by bloggers with inflated rhetoric (and self-importance):

Call it what you like: aggregating? Blogging? Choosing? Copyright infringing sometimes? But it’s not actually curation, or anything like it.

Also, note Greg Allen’s theory in the comments:

I always understood that this sense of “curation” came from retail, when people who were too overeducated to work in retail needed to be doing something besides buying and merchandising and window dressing.