Little Thoughts on Art: The Job Interview

Little Thoughts on Art: The Job Interview



Once I got invited for a job interview without having applied. That’s how I expect it to be, of course, jobs should just be offered to me on a silver platter. It was for a curatorial job in an alternative art centre in the Netherlands. The interview took place in Berlin during the Bienniale opening weekend in the apartment of the director. When I rang the bell downstairs, I was invited to come up to the fifth floor. There was no elevator so I guess they assumed I was in a good health condition and wasn’t handicapped. Arriving upstairs,  out of breath, I joked “You can see I’m fit for the job!” but the director turned her face so I couldn’t see if she found that funny.  After a little chit chat we came to the real deal: "How do you imagine yourself to be in 5 years time?" “Beautiful, rich and successful just like you!” would have been the ideal answer, but I was a little unprepared because I hadn’t expected traditional interview questions from an alternative art space. Others followed: "What is your weak spot?" “Perfectionism,” I nodded. “That’s a classic,” she said. A classic answer for a classic question, why not? But I tried a little harder: “I always arrive on time, mostly even too early, which can be really annoying.” We finished with: “How do you follow up on the exhibitions happening in our art space?” I hesitated, because until then I didn't really have the Netherlands on my radar. “E-flux?,” she suggested. “Sure,” I said. 

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