ARTHIST 734 A & B

Art Writing and Curatorial Practice


Please note: this is archived course information from 2017 for ARTHIST 734.

Description

This course explores the recent history of curatorial practice and writing about contemporary art. It will expose students interested in working with art galleries and museums to professional opportunities through a placement in a local institution or with an arts organisation, and will focus on developing comprehensive art writing skills. In the first semester, the focus is theoretical, with lectures and readings which will develop an understanding of how curatorial practice has changed in the last 30 years. A 60 hour curatorial placement can be undertaken in the inter-semester break, and the experience gained used as the basis for an essay submitted for assessment.

In the second semester, the course takes a practical, workshop-type approach to art writing with lectures on the history of art criticism, and development of understanding of the different modes of art writing from exhibition reviewing through catalogue essays and exhibition labels, to blogs and tweets.

To complete this course students must enrol in ARTHIST 734 A and B, or ARTHIST 734.

View the course syllabus

Availability 2017

Semester 1 and 2 (full year)

Lecturer(s)

Coordinator(s) Associate Professor Linda Tyler
Lecturer(s) Associate Professor Linda Tyler

Reading/Texts

Maria Lind, ed., Performing the Curatorial Within and Beyond Art, Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2012.

Recommended Reading

Bruce Altshuler, The Avant-Garde in Exhibition: New Art in the 20th Century, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1998.

Bruce Altshuler, Salon to Biennial: Exhibitions That Made Art History, Volume 1: 1863-1959, Phaidon Press, London, 2008; Exhibitions That Made Art History, Volume II: 1962-2002, Phaidon Press, London, 2013.

Gail Anderson, Reinventing the Museum: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on the Paradigm Shift, AltaMira Press, Berkeley, 2004.

Tony Bennett, Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics, Routledge, London, 1995.

Beatrice von Bismarck, Jörn Schafaff and Thomas Weski, eds., Cultures of the Curatorial, Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2012.

Douglas Crimp, On the Museum’s Ruins, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995.

Claire Doherty, ed., Situation, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2009.

Carol Duncan, Civilising Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums, Routledge, London, 1995.

Exhibition Histories (series), Afterall Books, London, 2010-ongoing.

Reesa Greenberg, Bruce W. Ferguson, and Sandy Nairne, eds., Thinking About Exhibitions, Routledge, London, 1996.

Brian O’Doherty, Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2000.

Paul O’Neill, The Culture of Curating and the Curating of Culture(s), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2012.

Paul O’Neill, ed., Curating Subjects, Open Editions/Occasional Table, London, 2007.

Paul O’Neill and Mick Wilson, eds., Curating and the Educational Turn, Open Editions/De Appel Arts Center, London and Amsterdam, 2010.

Hans Ulrich Obrist, A Brief History of Curating, JRP Ringier, Zurich, 2008.

Steven Rand and Heather Kouris, eds., Cautionary Tales: Critical Curating, apexart, New York, 2007.

Terry Smith, Thinking Contemporary Curating, Independent Curators International, New York, 2012.

Points

ARTHIST 734A: 15 points

ARTHIST 734B: 15 points