ART 218 - The Museum in History, Theory, and Practice

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

This seminar surveys the history and evolution of the art museum, beginning with private ”wonder rooms” and “cabinets of curiosity” in the Renaissance and concluding with the abundance of contemporary museums dedicated to broad public outreach. As we explore philosophies of both private and institutional collecting (including that of the college art museum), we use Vassar’s own Loeb Art Center as our first point of reference for considering a range of topics including the role of the museum in promoting art-historical scholarship and public education; its acquisition procedures; and challenges to the security or integrity of its collections posed by theft, traffic in forgeries, and the movement to repatriate antiquities to their country of origin. During the semester members of the class will curate an exhibition at the Loeb that will be on display in the spring of 2020. In addition, we will visit the Loeb several times to hear from different museum professionals about their careers, and we will visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Frick Collection in Manhattan in order to examine different approaches to museum architecture and installation. Travel expenses will be funded by the Department.

Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 or permission of the instructor.

Two 75-minute periods.

Not offered in 2020/21.

Course Format: CLS