*Winner of the ICA Book of the Year, 2015* Now that we 'curate' even lunch, what happens to the role of the connoisseur in contemporary culture? 'Curate' has become a buzzword, applied to everything from music festivals to artisanal cheese. Inside the art world, the curator reigns supreme, acting as the face of high-profile group shows in a way that can eclipse the contributions of individual artists. At the same time, curatorial-studies programs continue to grow, and businesses are adopting curation as a means of adding value to content. Everyone, it seems, is now a curator. But what is a curator, exactly? And what does the explosive popularity of curating say about our culture's relationship with taste, labour and the avant-garde? In this vibrant book, David Balzer travels through art history to explore the cult of curation, where it began, how it came to dominate museums and galleries, and how it emerged at the turn of the millennium as a dominant mode of thinking and being. Recalling such landmark works of cultural criticism as Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word and John Berger's Ways of Seeing, Balzer asks whether curationism has finally reached its own limits, where its widespread success has paradoxically led to its own demise.

Can I do this? I asked myself. I'd been repeating the same question for the last 24 hours. People seem to say, "It's Arvid-of course he can do it." If they knew how many times I struggled with self-doubt, with the question of whether I should bike another kilometre, they would never feel so confident. This was one of those times. Giving up now was, for me, symbolic of giving up on the kids at MCF. Many of them had been abandoned by parents, relatives and society, left to fend for themselves. God had never given up on them, and I was not going to quit a silly bike ride. I made up my mind: I will not give up. When Arvid set out on a 40 km bike ride only to give up after 30 km, his future as a cyclist seemed bleak. Yet, more than 15 years later, Arvid was racing alongside the world's most elite ultra-marathon athletes. This is his story of failure, courage, disappointment, triumph and laughter-and a few life lessons along the way.