ARTH 288: Curatorial Seminar: Artists' Books

Instructor: Laurel Bradley
Art History
Winter 2010
Course Description
An art museum collects artifacts as emblems of creativity, examples of craftsmanship, and as "emissaries of culture." The collection, often an accumulation of donated personal collections, is a reminder of past tastes and institutional practices. This course entertains theoretical and historical questions about the nature of museums and collections, and also engages with practical museum procedures and projects. Assignments bring into focus the special history and function of art collections and museums in a college context. Students in this iteration of the seminar contributed to an exhibition, Radical Messages, Revolutionary Means and speculated on possible curricular uses of the Carleton College collection.

Mini-Exhibition Project

Motivation

The goal of the course is an art gallery exhibition. This exercise gets the students engaged with basic acts of curating early in the term.

Learning Goals

To tell a story with objects (complemented by text). To become sensitized to the way specific objects shape a story. To articulate a unifying idea in a short text written with clear language.

Assessment

The written statements (called didactic "labels" articulating a "big idea") will be easiest to evaluate. The challenge for the students and the evaluator is to gauge the quality of the visual connection between objects organized as "mini exhibitions."

Resources

This assignment requires the collaboration of the Special Collections Librarian and her Assistant.

This assignment is presented in the Gould Library Special Collections classroom and requires the assistance of the Special Collections Librarian. Simple book display objects including bookstands and book weights enhance the display.

As a follow-up to this assignment, it would be ideal to give the students opportunities to post their mini-exhibitions on the web. This would require support from web specialists to format, gather information, create images and so on.

Syllabus

Course Syllabus (Microsoft Word 64kB Dec5 12)