CURATORSHIP AND THE PRACTICE OF EXHIBITION FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTS

The course is scheduled among the core educational activities for art-historical disciplines in the degree course in Economics and Management of Arts and Cultural Activities.
The main course objective is to provide students with the basic elements to understand the main functions of curatorship in the contemporary art system and to analyze some exhibition case studies. Not only curators and artists, but professionals who are indispensable to create an exhibition will be considered as well: museum directors, gallery owners, registrar project managers, and others.
For this purpose, meetings with artists, curators, and other related figures will be organized within the course.

1. Knowledge
The topic will be treated from a theoretical point of view to understand what curatorship means. Through case studies of exhibitions by various curators, the theme will be analyzed transversely in world contemporary art. There will be interventions by curators of contemporary art and other specialists, as well as artists.
2. Communicative skills
Each student will be able to formulate the arguments of the course in a clear and reasoned way.
3. Critical skills
Students will be able to critically evaluate the historical evolution of this phenomenon, as well as to recognize the exhibitions of different geographical areas, to place them correctly in the period in question, also managing to describe their features and peculiar characteristics.
4. Results
The learning outcomes will be assessed by an exam.

Basic knowledge of contemporary art history acquired through the fundamental teaching courses scheduled in the biennial degree course.

The course will deal organically with the basic elements to understand the main functions of contemporary art curatorship, analyzing the role of the curator and some specific exhibitions through a few case studies.
We will also consider the figures that contribute to the exhibition practice, not only artists and curators, but the professionals who are indispensable in the realization of an exhibition project: museum directors, gallery owners, registrars, project managers, educational experts, and others. For this purpose, meetings with these figures will be organized within the course.
The course is divided into three parts:
1) The first part will be theoretical and will deal with the theme of the "cure" of art: when it was born, how it develops, what are the current trends. This part of the course will provide the tools to frame the figure of the curator and his functions, his characteristics, and prerogatives in the contemporary art system.
2) The second part will be dedicated to relevant curators (including Szeeman, Celant, Obrist) and to case studies of contemporary art exhibitions that have marked important milestones in this perspective.
3) The third part is dedicated to the activity of Ca’ Foscari Esposizioni which for over 10 years has a stable and recognized expertise in this field. The aim is to analyze, through the most significant exhibitions, what it means to practice this type of activity in a university and how one could think of a University Museum today.

Notes from the lessons
Material from the e-learning platform Moodle including essays and catalogs in pdf format which will be provided by the professor.

Reference texts
Chiara Bertola, Curare l'arte, Milano, Electa, 2008.

Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Breve storia della curatela, Milano, Postmedia Books, 2011.

Hans Ulrich Obrist Fare una mostra, Milano, Utet, 2014.

Ambra Stazzone, Harald Szeemann. L'arte di creare mostre, Bologna, Fausto Lupetti Editore,
2019.

Arthur C. Danto, Che cos'è l'arte, Milano, Johan&Levi, 2014.

David Balzer, Curatori d'assalto: l’irrefrenabile impulso alla curatela nel mondo dell’arte e in tutto il resto, Milano, Johan & Levi, 2016.

Tomaso Montanari, Vincenzo Trione, Contro le mostre, Torino, Einaudi, 2017.


For non-attending students, bibliographical integrations to be agreed with the professor are provided.

The learning outcomes will be assessed by a written exam of three hours.
The exam consists of three open questions. One incomplete answer will result in a fail grade.
The use of books, notes, and electronic media is not allowed during the test.
Non-attending students may sit the exam based on the bibliographical integrations enlisted in the dedicated section.

Lectures on line with projected images from Powerpoint-presentation.
In order to bring the students closer to the topics, the seminar includes screenings and lessons held by guest scholars.

The material shown during the lessons will be available on the University's Moodle e-learning platform together with additional bibliographical material.

Italian

The slides commented during the lessons are available in the Moodle section of the Professor’s website.

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Human capital, health, education" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development