HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 2nd degree (Master)

Responsible Department: History of Art

Semester: 2nd Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Dr Noam Gal

Coordinator Email: noamaf@gmail.com

Coordinator Office Hours: Tuesday 2:30-3:30

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Noam Gal

Course/Module description:
How do museums work? What are their social functions in our times? How to describe the relation between objects in the museum and the experience of the visitor? What links museums to history, or, alternatively, to art? These and other questions have drawn the attention of many scholars in the past few decades. In our seminar we will be introduced to some of the attempts to answer these questions, through discussions on various curatorial issues: curating exhibitions, writing about art and culture, conservation of historical artifacts, display of everyday objects or works of art, pedagogic activities (guiding exhibitions, for instance), collection management and acquisitions, constant contact with the public, circulation of exhibitions internationally, and many more. The method of our class is key – investigating art within the art institute. Therefore, all sessions run in the galleries, storage spaces, public spaces and outdoor spaces of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. The first half of the course (Fall semester) will take a more introductory shape, and will visit objects and themes from various periods, from pre-history and antiquity to medieval, Renaissance and modernism. In this path we will be guided also by curators from the relevant departments of the museum, and meet other professionals whose function in the museum-world is vital to the ways we operate within the institution and may appreciate it critically. In the second half of the course (Spring semester) we will focus on curatorial issues in contemporary art. For this reason, we will explore some of the major texts about the question of 'the contemporary' and the periodization of art history. Via several contemporaneous exhibitions, we will meet the main mediums in contemporary art, such video-art, performance, installation and sound-art, and inquire about their relation to painting, drawing, sculpture and photography.

Course/Module aims:
The course provides tools for research of museum history, for investigating museum spaces and for analysis of curatorial practices.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
students will be capable of analyzing museum practices across arts and historical contexts.

Attendance requirements(%):
100

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction:

Course/Module Content:
session 1: Introduction
session 2: The museum - to collect, present and represent.
Making and Effacing Art (Fisher,
James Clifford. "On Collecting Art and Culture", in: The Predicament of Culture, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 215-230.
session 3:
Museum Spaces as Cultural Exchange.
Arjun Appadurai. “Commodities and the Politics of Value”, in: The Social Life of Things (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986), pp. 3-63
session 4: Space and Public
Martha Rossler, "spectators, buyers, producers," (1976)
session 5: Space and Public 2
Bruce Ferguson. "Exhibition Rhetorics: material speech and utter sense", in: Thinking About Exhibitions , R. Greenberg, B. Ferguson and S. Nairne eds. (London: Routledge, 2005), 126-136
session 6: Archaeology and the museum
Phillip Fisher. "Art and the Future's Past", in: Making and Effacing Art, (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991), pp.3-29
session 7: Conservation issues
Samuel Alberti. “Objects and the Museum”, ISIS Vol. 96, 2005, pp. 559-571
session 8
Ethnography and display
Stephanie Moser. “The Devil is in the Detail: Museum Displays and the Creation of Knowledge”, Museum Anthropology 33(1), 2010, pp. 22-32
session 9
Anthropology and Non-Western Arts
Ruth Phillips. “Exhibiting Africa After Modernism”, in: Museums After Modernism: Strategies of Engagement Pollock and Zemans eds. (Oxford: Blackwell Press, 2007), pp. 80-103
session 10: Museums and the History of Art
Mieke Bal. “On Grouping: The Caravaggio Corner”, in: Looking In: The Art of Viewing, N. Byson ed. (New York: Routeldge, 2001), pp. 161-190
session 11: Museums and the history of Modern Art
Krauss et al. “The Reception of the Sixties”, October 69, 1994, pp. 3-21
session 12: Showing Local
Sarah Hinski, "The Silence of Fish: local and universal in Israeli Art Discourse", Theory and Criticism 4 1993, 105-122
Beatrice von Bismarck. “The Exhibition as Collective”, in: Cultures of the Curatorial [Sternberg Press, 2012], 289-302.
session 13: The history of contemporary art
Terry Smith, “The State of Art History: Contemporary Art”, The Art Bulletin, 92(4), 2010, 366-383
session 14: contemporary architecture of art spaces
Suzanne McLeod, “Rethinking Museum Architecture”, in: Reshaping Museum Space, [Routeledge, 2005] 9-26

Required Reading:
James Clifford. "On Collecting Art and Culture", in: The Predicament of Culture, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 215-230.
Arjun Appadurai. “Commodities and the Politics of Value”, in: The Social Life of Things (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986), pp. 3-63
מרתה רסלר, "צופים, קונים, סוחרים, יצרנים/יוצרים, מחשבות על קהל", בתוך: בתוך ומחוץ לתמונה , תרגמה: אסתר דותן (תל אביב: פיתום, 2000), 9-50
Bruce Ferguson. "Exhibition Rhetorics: material speech and utter sense", in: Thinking About Exhibitions , R. Greenberg, B. Ferguson and S. Nairne eds. (London: Routledge, 2005), 126-136
Phillip Fisher. "Art and the Future's Past", in: Making and Effacing Art, (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991), pp.3-29
Samuel Alberti. “Objects and the Museum”, ISIS Vol. 96, 2005, pp. 559-571
Stephanie Moser. “The Devil is in the Detail: Museum Displays and the Creation of Knowledge”, Museum Anthropology 33(1), 2010, pp. 22-32
אריאלה אזולאי, בדלתיים פתוחות: מוזיאונים להיסטוריה במרחב הציבורי בישראל", תיאוריה וביקורת 4, 1993, עמ' 79-95

Ruth Phillips. “Exhibiting Africa After Modernism”, in: Museums After Modernism: Strategies of Engagement Pollock and Zemans eds. (Oxford: Blackwell Press, 2007), pp. 80-103
Mieke Bal. “On Grouping: The Caravaggio Corner”, in: Looking In: The Art of Viewing, N. Byson ed. (New York: Routeldge, 2001), pp. 161-190
Krauss et al. “The Reception of the Sixties”, October 69, 1994, pp. 3-21
שרה חינסקי, "שתיקת הדגים: מקומי ואוניברסלי בשיח האמנות הישראלי", תיאוריה וביקורת 4, 1993, 105-122
Beatrice von Bismarck. “The Exhibition as Collective”, in: Cultures of the Curatorial [Sternberg Press, 2012], 289-302.

Additional Reading Material:

Grading Scheme :
Essay / Project / Final Assignment / Home Exam / Referat 70 %
Attendance / Participation in Field Excursion 30 %

Additional information: