Museum Studies

Course goals

After completing this course students are able to:

1. Identify the main characteristics and developments of the public (art) museum.
2. Describe some of the main players and key transformations in the museum world.
3. Approach, describe, and assess an exhibition script.
4. Engage concepts, methods, and theories in order to analyze and interpret museal phenomena.
5. Conduct small-scale, supervised research on an aspect of curatorship.
6. Practice forms of art writing.
7. Creatively engage theoretical knowledge in a practical curatorial exercise.

Relationship between assessment and learning goals:

Exhibition Analysis 25% (3, 4, 6, 7)
Exhibition Review 25 % (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
Term Paper 25% (1, 3, 5, 6, 7)
Presentation 25% (1, 3, 5, 6, 7)




Assessment connected to learning goals:
Exhibition analysis 20% (Learning goals: 3, 4)
Exhibition review 20%  (Learning goals: 3, 4, 5)
Proposal and poster term essay 10%  (Learning goals: 4, 5)
Term essay 30% (Learning goals: 1, 2, 5, 6)
Final test 20%  (Learning goals: 1, 2, 4)
 

Content

Museum Studies, sometimes called Museology, deals with the birth, development and operation of the public museum as one of the key institutions of the modern world. While collections of art and other objects are probably as old as human society itself, collecting and preserving valued objects for public display with state support or, increasingly, by (semi-) private foundations, is a more recent phenomenon. The institution of museum is connected to Art History and other academic disciplines as the place where art works and other objects are ordered, preserved and researched by specialists, and exhibited for a broad audience. Starting in the eighteenth century, museums became one of the instruments whereby nation states created and democratized national pasts using a repertoire of images and objects that were displayed in purpose-built or adapted architecture (such as the British Museum and the Louvre). Musealisation as a process therefore involves removing art works and other objects from the original context of manufacture or use and re-installing them in a new order according to criteria such as chronology, school, genre, or theme. Certain objects are further distinguished as masterpieces or (type) specimens, this distinction being reflected in their location in physical (and virtual) space and in relation to comparable works installed there.
Since the inception of the public museum, ideas and practices of exhibition (as well as storage, preservation, classification and public education) have undergone continuous transformation. The course examines several approaches to key players – director, curator, patron, architect – through case studies, site and/ or virtual visits, analyses, review-writing, and a practical exercise in curating. Part I departs from the concept of museum script to consider the agency of curatorship. Part 2 considers forms of agency exercised by modern patrons in public museums. Students research an aspect of curatorship for their term paper.

Format
There are two meetings per week.  The first will consist of a lecture; and the second will be devoted to discussing the weekly reading assignment.

Pre-requisite for UCHUMHAR31 Modern Art and UCHUMHAR32 Heritage; and for the UCU Cultural Heritage programme (CHIP).