Curatorial Training Seminar 563:01

Professor Jane Sharp ()

Fall 2017 – Thurs. 9:50-12:30

CAC Voorhees 001 (Seminar Room)

Office hours: Thursdays 2-4 pm and Zimmerli Art Museum by appointment

SYLLABUS: NB! Readings and museum visits may be revised (after the first week of classes)

This introductory course is designed to expose students to the range of practical and theoretical concerns that define the curatorial profession. Based at the Zimmerli Art Museum, and drawing on the professional expertise of its curators and staff from registrars to preparation and installation crew, we will address topics fromconnoisseurship and object based research to housing and installation. Other subjects examined during the course include acquisitions, cataloguing, and collection care as well as exhibition planning and budgeting. Some sessions will be held at other local museums and collections (in the NYC/Philadelphia area).Museum trips, most of which will take place on Thursday mornings (or evenings in the rare case), are mandatory and I will make every effort to schedule these to suit everyone’s needs.

Course Goals: Students are evaluated on the basis of their writing, oral participation, and exchanges with colleagues in a variety of contexts, from focused seminar discussion to observations made on field trips and in the galleries. They should develop a broad familiarity with the issues driving curatorial work today, from those relating to collection management to the creative generation of concepts for exhibitions.

Visits under discussion:

Princeton University Art Museum (photography and off-site storage facilities)

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (exhibition planning in historical spaces)

The Brooklyn Museum (diversity in curatorial programming)

The Philadelphia Museum of Art (collections in focus)

Private Collection (South Asian Art)

A conservation studio

Requirements:

Summer reading, prior to class: David Balzer, Curationism: How Curating Took over the Art World and Everything Else (Toronto: Coach House Books, 2014)

Students will be required to study and critique (at a museum in the NYC, NJ, Philadelphia, area)

1)An installation of a permanent collection

2)A special exhibition

Students will research anartwork in their area of expertise contributing one catalogue entry of 750 to 1,000 words, and a museum label (150 words); plan a “an artwork in context” exhibition centered on one or more objects from a public collection to which they/we have access—with a checklist, rough budget, and introductory wall text.

Students will briefly introduce a selected reading for each week (no more than 3 for the semester). These are not intended to be long presentations; they should provoke discussion as you assess the author’s argument (10-12 minutes). We will assign these readings as part of our Introduction on Sept. 7.

Each student will be expected to participate fully in seminar discussions and practicums (including trips to visit collections and curators). At the end of the semester, students will present their theoretical exhibitions to the class (with a powerpoint presentation). The tools and methods introduced here will complement the other components of the Curatorial Certificate program.

Students are expected to attend all classes; if you expect to miss one or two classes, please use the University absence reporting website to indicate the date and reason for your absence. An email is automatically sent to me.

Course Deadlines:

Review of a permanent collection gallery due October 19
Review of a temporary (special) exhibition and exhibition proposaldue on November 9
Museum label, catalogue entry drafts due Nov. 21; final due December 7
Exhibition checklist, floor plan, introductory wall text due December 7

Plagiarism and Academic Integrity:Please see the video at:

There is a no acceptable reason or excuse for plagiarism at the university. We follow a "zero tolerance" policy.

Sept. 7 Introduction: Discussion of the curator’s role today; overview of syllabus

Week 2 /Sept. 14—Introduction to the University Art Museum (Tour of ZAM)

Readings:Svetlana Alpers “The Museum as a Way of Seeing,” in Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine, eds.

Lisa G. Corrin, “Artists Look at Museums, Museums Look at Themselves.” In Museum Studies . . .

Orhan Pamuk, “Manifesto for Museums”

Week 3 /Sept. 21–Collecting: Theories and Practices (Visit Zimmerli Dodge Collection)

Questions of authenticity in Russian art (Dr. Julia Tulovsky, Curator of Russian and Soviet Collections, ZAM)

Readings: John Elsner and Roger Cardinal, The Cultures of Collecting, “Introduction,”1-6

Ivan Gaskell, Vermeer’s Wager: Speculations on Art History, Theory and Art Museums, “The Donors” 174-196.

Jean Baudrillard, “The System of Collecting” in The Cultures of Collecting

[Waltraud Bayer, “The Unofficial Market: Art and Dissent, 1956-1988” Zimmerli Journal, 2008, pp. 58-83.]

Week 4 /Sept. 28 Field Trip: Brooklyn Museum, Deputy Director, Dr. Sharon Matt Atkins (Director for Curatorial Affairs)

Administration and programming: controversies in collecting and display:

Readings:Sheila Regan, “In Mainstream Museums, Confronting Colonialism While Curating Native American Art,” Hyperallergic

Helen Molesworth on Gender issues, Hyperallergic

Christa Clarke, “Exhibiting African Art in the 21st Century”

Whiney Biennial (2017) responses in the periodical press

Week 5 /Oct. 5Curatorial research and methods; collaboration in the university art museum (Dr. Donna Gustafson, Senior Curator and Liason for Academic Programs); Marti Mayo, Interim Director, ZAM

Readings: Donna Gustafson and Prof. Andrés Zervigon, “Introduction” (Subjective Objective; Social photography show)

Anne Higgonet, “The Social Life of Provenance,”

Andreas Beyer, “Between Academic and Exhibition Practice: The Case of Renaissance Studies,” 25-31, in Haxthausen, The Two Art Histories

Angelica Zander Rudentstine, Solomon R. Guggenheim Collection Catalogue entries; look at this catalogue and the origina Peggy Guggenheim catalogue from 1942 on reserve

Week 6 /Oct. 12 Permanent collections 1: issues of care and presentation. Meeting with ZAM registrar, Leslie Kriff; Collection Management and Care (Dr. Christine Giviskos, Director of Morse Center, Curator of European Art)

Print connoisseurship

Readings: Elizabeth Pye, Caring for the Past: Issues in conservation for archaeology and museums (London: James and James Ltd, 2001) Begin reading (Chapters 1-4 and pp. 157-165

Spiro, “Introduction”, The Power of Prints

Week 7 /October 19 Exhibitions: The Museum as Site

VISIT TO Solomon R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM (Senior Curator, Susan Davidson)

First paper due, review of a permanent collection gallery installation

Readings: Michael Baxandall, “Exhibiting Intention: Some Preconditions of theVisual Display of Culturally Purposeful Objects, in Exhibiting Cultures, 33-41

Robert Storr, “Show and Tell,” in Paola Marincola What Makes a Great Exhibition, 14-31

Richard Kendall, “Eloquent Walls and Argumentative Spaces: Displaying the Late Works of Degas,” in Haxthausen,The Two Art Histories

Week 8 /October26:Professor at conference: Read in Preparation for Visit

NB: Alternative DATE for Private Collections: Visit to Umesh and Sunanda Gaur’s private collection

Readings: Umesh Gaur, “Collecting Contemporary Indian Art in America,” India: Contemporary Art from Northeastern Private Collections.

Gayatri Sinha, “Return of the Gaze: Indian Photography in Cosmopolitan Contexts,” Looking In/Looking Out: Contemporary Indian Photography form the Gaur Collection.

Week 9 /Nov.2 Field trip: Philadelphia Museum of Art

Dr. Christopher Atkins (Agnes and Jack Mulroney Associate Curator of European Painting and Sculpture; Manager of Curatorial Digital Programs and Initiatives)

Dr. Matthew Affron (Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art)

Readings: Andrew McClennan, Inventing the Louvre, “Intro,” and “Building a Collection”

Philip Fisher, “Art and the Future’s Past”

Howard Fox, “The Right to be Wrong”

Week 10 Nov.9 No Readings

Second paper due, Exhibition review; Exhibition proposal

Assignment: For next week, send an example of what you would consider a bad label (from any type of museum, except the Zimmerli). A phone snapshot of the label would be perfect. Send your example to guest speaker, Amanda Potter, Curator of Interpretation and Education, Zimmerli Art Museum, at week before before October 26 so that all examples can be put together for a PowerPoint.

Week 11 /Nov. 16 Guest speaker: Amanda Potter, Curator of Interpretation and Education, ZAM

Readings: Alexander Nemerov, “The Pleasure of Conversation,” Yale University Bulletin

“Your Labels Make Me Feel Stupid,”

Ingrid Shaffner, “Wall Text,” in What Makes a Great Exhibition

Gallery Text at the V & A Ten Point Guide

Sample Labels from Zimmerli Exhibitions, Thinking Pictures; Photography Show

Week 12 /Nov. 21

THANKSGIVING Class takes place on Tuesday

Special issues- Contemporary curating/ participatory art

First draft of your label and catalogue entry due

Readings: Claire Bishop, Museum Models, Radical Spectatorship

On contemporary curating and the archive:

Terry Smith, Kate Fowle, eds. Thinking Contemporary Curating, New York: ICI, 2012, online resource

Maria Lind, Stirring the Smooth Surfaces of the World: The Curatorial and the Translocal

“Harald Szeemann” and Pontus Hulten,” in Hans Ulrich Obrist, A Brief History of Curating

Interpol Exhibition Controversy

Week 13 /Nov. 30:Presentations

Week 14 / Dec. 7:Presentations

VISIT TO PRINCETON UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM, afternoon

Selected Bibliography (General Sources for Readings)

Altschuler, Bruce, ed. Collecting the New: Museums and Contemporary Art. Princeton and Oxford: PUP, 2004. (Howard Fox, “The Right to be Wrong,” pp. 15-28; Christophe Cherix, “Breaking Down Categories,” pp. 55-64; Vishakha Desai, “Beyond the Authentic-Exotic . .”, pp. 103-ff). R

David Balzer, Curationism: How Curating Took over the Art World and Everything Else (Toronto: Coach House Books, 2014).

Barker, Emma, ed. Contemporary Cultures of Display. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1999. R

Carbonell, Bettina Messias, ed.Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts.Oxford, UK.: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2003.

Cuno, James.Whose Muse?: Art Museums and the Public Trust. Princeton and Oxford: PUP, 2004.

______, ed. Unsettling Sensation: Lessons from the Brooklyn Museum of Art Controversy. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001.

Dickey, Jennifer W., Samir El Azhar, and Catherine Lewis, eds. Museums in a Global Context: National Identity, International Understanding. Washington D.C.: AAM Press/Rowan and Littlefield, 2013. (Din, Herminia and Wie-Hsin Din, “Will Online Technology Shape Museum engagement in the Global Community?: Opportunities and Challenges.” 206-216)

Fink, Lois Marie. “Museum Archives as Resources for Scholarly Research and Institutional Identity,” in New Museum Theory and Practice

Fowle, Kate and Terry Smith, eds. Thinking Contemporary Curating. New York, ICI, 2012.

Fitz Gibbon, Kate, ed. Who Owns the Past? Cultural Policy, Property, and the Law. New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press, 2005. R

Greenberg, Reesa, Bruce Ferguson and Sandy Nairne, eds.Thinking about Exhibitions. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. R

Haxthausen, Charles Werner, ed. The Two Art Histories: The Museum and the University. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francis Clark Art Institute, 2002. (Beyer and Kendall). R

Karp, Ivan and Steven D. Lavine, eds. Exhibiting Cultures: the Poetics and Politics of Museum Display. Washington D.C. and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991 (Alpers, pp. 25-32).

King, Elaine A. and Gail Levin, eds.Ethics and the Visual Arts. New York: Allworth Press, 2006.

Mansfield, Elizabeth, ed. Making Art History: A Changing Discipline and its Institutions. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. R

Marincola, Paola, ed. What Makes a Great Exhibition?. London: Reaktion Books, 2006. R

Marstine, Jane, ed., New Museum Theory and Practice: An Introduction. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2005.

McClellan, Andrew. Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth-Century Paris. UC Press, 1999 (1994).

______. The Art Museum from Boullée to Bilbao. Berkeley and Los Angeles: UC Press, 2008. (“Artchitecture”) Chapter: “Artchitecture.”

______, ed. Art and Its Publics: Museum Studies at the Millenium, Oxford: Blackwell Press, 2003 (Christa Clarke, “Exhibiting African Art in the 21st Century”

O’Neill, Paul.The Culture of Curating and the Curating of Culture(s).Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. Chapter:Paul O’Neill, “The Emergence of Curatorial Discourse from the 1960s to the Present.”

Obrist, Hans Ulrich, ed. A Short History of Curating. Zurich and Dijon, IRP Publishers, 2008.

Parry, Ross, ed. Museums in a Digital Age. London and New York Routledge, 2010.

NB there are many journal resources and other resources online for museum management and curatorship . . . we’ll be adding these to Sakai.