Syllabus

1. January 25. Introduction: Current Issues in Display

2. February 1. Curiosity: Then and Now

Reading:

Stephen Bann, “The Return to Curiosity: Shifting Paradigms in Contemporary Museum Display,” in Art and its Publics: Museum Studies at the Millennium, edited by Andrew McClellan (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 117-130.

Lorraine Daston and Katherine Park, “Wonders of Art, Wonders of Nature,” in Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750 (New York: Zone Books, 1998), 255-301.

Lawrence Weschler, “Inhaling the Spore: Field Trip to a Museum of Natural (un)History.” Harper’s Magazine (September 1, 1994): 47-58.

Viewing:

Museum of Jurassic Technology. http://www.mjt.org

“Permanent Collection” and “Galleries, Exhibitions and Shows” at The Museum of Online Museums. http://www.coudal.com/moom.php

3. February 8. Contested Publics

Reading;

Selection from Tony Bennett, “The Exhibitionary Complex,” (1988) reprinted in Donald Preziosi and Claire Farago, Grasping the World: The Idea of the Museum (London: Ashgate, 2004), 413-441.

Andrew McClellan, “Introduction,” in Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 1-12.

Pierre Bourdieu, “Introduction.” Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. (English translation on-line at http://www.hommemoderne.org/societe/socio/bourdieu/distinct/introUK.html

Vera L. Zolberg, “Taste as a Social Weapon.” Review of Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Contemporary Sociology 15.4 (July 1986): 511-515.

4. February 15. College Art Association (CAA) Conference.

Hilton Hotel, 6th Avenue between 54th and 55th Streets. I will distribute in advance a list of sessions addressing issues pertinent to this class. I plan to attend the conference from 9 AM until 3 PM on Thursday, and will arrange to meet students on-site at various times throughout the day. Note that the lunchtime sessions (12-1:30) are free and open to the public. So even if you are not registered for the conference, you are required to attend at lunchtime, which is also the time of our class meetings.

5. February 22. Public Art Today

Reading:

Patricia C. Phillips. “Creating Democracy: A Dialogue with Krzysztof Wodiczko,” Art Journal 62.4 (Winter 2003): 32-47.

Patricia C. Phillips, “Temporality and Public Art,” Art Journal 48.4, Critical Issues in Public Art. (Winter 1989): 331-335.

Douglas Aitken: sleepwalkers. Exhibition description posted on MoMA website.

http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2007/aitken/

Viewing:

“Doug Aitken: sleepwalkers.” Projected on the façade of The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues). January 16–February 12, 2007. 5 – 10 PM. For information on precise viewing locations, how to receive narration on your cell phone, and other information, please visit the exhibition’s website before going to MoMA: http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2007/aitken/sleepwalkers_visitor_info.pdf

“Arts for Transit,” Metropolitan Transit Authority. Please visit the website and try to visit at least one of the sites mentioned. If you are going to MoMA, consider the 50th Street station on the 1 train, with art by Liliana Porter or the 50th Street station on the C train, with art by Matt Mullican. http://www.mta.info/mta/aft/ .

6. March 1. NO CLASS.

I will be chairing 2 sessions at a conference in Virginia that begins today. Please use this week to visit exhibitions that address issues pertinent to this class. A list of exhibitions will be distributed on February 15th, and an exhibition review (2-3 pages) will be due in class on March 8.

7. March 8. Displaying Commerce

Guest Speaker: Carol Duncan, Professor Emeritus of Art History, Ramapo College of New Jersey.

Reading:

Carol Duncan, “Museums and Department Stores: Close Encounters,” in High-Pop: Making Culture into Popular Entertainment, edited by Jim Collins (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 129-154.

James B. Twitchell, Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museum World (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), 223-272.

Viewing:

Please visit at least one of the following:

The MoMA Design Store and the Architecture and Design galleries at MoMA

or

“Design Life Now: The National Design Triennial” and the Gift Shop at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, located at 91st Street and 5th Avenue.

or

Moss. 146 Greene Street.

8. March 15. Bodies on Display: Art/Science/Commerce

Reading:

Vanessa R. Schwartz, “Museums and Mass Spectacle: The Musée Grévin as a Monument to Modern Life,” French Historical Studies 19.1 (1995): 7-26.

Viewing:

“Kiki Smith: A Gathering, 1980-2005,” Whitney Museum of American Art. Exhibition closes February 11th.

“Bodies: The Exhibition” website. http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/intro.html

Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum official website. http://www.madame-tussauds.com/

March 22 – No class – Spring break

9. March 29. Whose History?

Reading:

Susan A. Crane, “Memory, Distortion, and History in the Museum,” History and Theory 36. 4 (December 1997): 44-63.

Viewing:

Please visit:

“International Freedom Center” website, tracing plans for, and end of, proposed project at the World Trade Center Site. http://www.ifcwtc.org/

“Take Back the Memorial” on-line site representing a coalition of 9/11 victims’ families. Please note especially the opposition voiced to the “International Freedom Center,” listed on the right under “Prior News Archive.” http://www.takebackthememorial.org/

If you feel comfortable visiting the site, please also go to:

“The Viewing Wall,” exhibition organized by the Skyscraper Museum and situated around the perimeter of the World Trade Center site.

10. April 5. Revisiting Primitivism

Guest Speaker: Olivia Powell, PhD Candidate, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, and Chief Curator of “Primitivism Revisited,” on view at the Sean Kelly Gallery, 528 West 29th Street. Please note that the exhibition closes on January 27th. Please attend if at all possible.

Reading:

James Clifford, “Histories of the Tribal and the Modern,” (1985) reprinted in Donald Preziosi and Claire Farago, Grasping the World: The Idea of the Museum (London: Ashgate, 2004), 636-52.

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “Objects of Ethnography,” in Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998), 17-78.

11. April 12. Global Exhibitions

Tim Griffin, “Global Tendencies: Globalism and Large-Scale Exhibition, “(panel discussion), Artforum International 42.3 (Nov 2003): p152(15).

Pamela M. Lee, “Boundary Issues: The Art World under the Sign of Globalism.(Critical Essay), Artforum International 42.3 (Nov 2003): p164(4).

Viewing:

Please visit The Brooklyn Museum’s “Global Feminisms” exhibition. I will be attending on the evening of Saturday, April 7th, when the museum hosts its monthly “First Saturday.” The

12. April 19. Student Presentations

13. April 26. Student Presentations

14. May 3. Student Presentations

15. May 10. Conclusions – FINAL PAPERS DUE IN CLASS