The book by the famous art critic and curator Viktor Misiano represents the first attempt in Russian to provide a theoretical description of curatorial practice. The author associates the appearance of the latter in the late 1960s – early 1970s with the transition from industrial to post-industrial (immaterial) production. The work of a curator is examined in the book in the context of the art system, as well as through the relationship of global and local artistic processes. The author explores the internal nature of curation, its inherent language and ethics. Read for the first time as a series of lectures at the Moscow UNIK Institute, the text of the book maintains a connection with oral speech and is accompanied by excursions into the professional biography of the author.