AHT2712 · Curating: Histories and theories

Overview

This unit introduces you to key histories and theories of curating from the mid-eighteenth century to the present. You will examine the development of museums, collections, exhibitions, biennales and curatorial practice, with particular attention to the changing role of the curator from the mid-1970s onward. The unit considers curating both through art objects and as an expanded field of practice that may be activist, temporal, decolonising, performative or socially engaged. Through historical case studies and theoretical debates, you will develop a working vocabulary for asking critical questions of contemporary curatorial practice and for applying curatorial thinking to future art historical, artistic, writing or museum and gallery contexts.

Offerings

Assessment

The Handbook does not list a final examination among the assessment items. That is not a guarantee there is none.

100% in-semester assessment

Assessment details may change. Please refer to the assessment information in Moodle closer to the start of the teaching period.

Requisites

Learning outcomes

1. Identify key theoretical questions in curatorial practice and describe major historical developments in curating from the eighteenth century to the present;
2. Apply historical and theoretical knowledge to practical acts of curating you might undertake;
3. Connect key moments in the history of curating with theoretical debates and the practices of prominent historical and contemporary curators;
4. Analyse how curatorial histories and theories shape the roles of curators, artists, audiences, institutions and communities;
5. Engage with the issues and theories of curating insofar as they apply to your art practice or study of art history;
6. Develop a working vocabulary and method for asking critical questions of contemporary curatorial practice.

Workload

12 hours per week including 3 contact hours plus 9 hours of independent study.

Student experience, not official rules. Nothing here changes what the Handbook says.