CURATORSHIP

The course contributes to the overall objectives of the program by providing the conceptual and argumentative tools to interpret functions and issues of curatorship.

At the end of the course, students will: 1) Understand some fundamental developments in the historical evolution of curating (and the institutional contexts in which it occurs) from the beginning of the last century to the present. 2) Be acquainted with prominent figures in the field of curating. 3) Be capable of mastering a series of key concepts in curatorial discourse. 4) Have acquired a set of bibliographic tools useful for navigating the debate regarding the subject of the course.

Basic knowledge of contemporary art history, or at least curiosity about the subject matter.
Solid knowledge of English.

The course aims to analyze the evolution of curating from the foundation of the modern museum (and international fairs) to the present day. Attention is focused on both curatorial practices and the analysis of the contexts in which they develop, with particular emphasis on the museum and large-scale exhibitions.

Several temporal periods will be examined:

Modernity, the period dominated by historical avant-gardes.
The 1960s and the emergence of the independent curator figure.
The long '68: forms of innovation/deconstruction of curating between the late 1960s and 1970s.
The 1990s with the spread of the biennial format and the rise of global curators.
Contemporaneity and curating in the age of crises.

the complete syllabus will be available on Moodle

Tony Bennett. The birth of the museum: History, theory, politics. Routledge, 2013.

Mary Anne Staniszewski, Framing Installation design: The International Avant-Gardes, in The Power of Display: A History of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art, The MIT Press, Cambridge, London; 1998. p. 3-24.

Peter Bürger, Theory of The Avant-Garde, Manchester University Press, University of Minnesota Press, 1984, p. 35-55

Mary Anne Staniszewski, Creating Installations for Aesthetic Autonomy: Alfred Barr's Exhibition technique, in The Power of Display: A History of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art, Cambridge, London, The MIT Press, 1998. p. 60-83

Hans Ulrich Obrist; Harald Szeemann; in A Brief History of Curating, Zurich, Jrp Ringier, 2008; p.99-127.

Harald Szeemann, Selected Writings, Los Angeles, Getty Publications, 2018.

Marco Baravalle; The Curator's Hot Autumn: Worker protests and Harald Szeemann. At the roots of the neoliberal anthropology of working in art, (unpublished translation of Italian book chapter)

Martina Tanga, Extramural Exhibitions: Volterra ’73 and Ambiente Come Sociale, Martina Tanga, Arte Ambientale, Urban Space And Participatory Art, Routledge, 2019. 24-62

Vittoria Martini; The Venice Biennale at Its Turning Points: 1948 and the Aftermath of 1968; in Making Art History in Europe After 1945, Edited by Noemi de Haro García, Patricia Mayayo, Jesús Carrillo, Routledge; 2020.

Ana Longoni; Avant-Garde Argentinian Visual Artists Group, Tucumán Burns (1968) ; Contrappunto; Mousse; 2; 4-2014; 1-18

Yaiza Hernandez Velazquez; Imagining Curatorial Practice after 1972; in P. O'Neill, Simon Sheikh, Lucy Steeds, Mick Wllson (eds); Curating After The Global, Cambridge, London, The MIT Press, 2019.

Lucy Lippard, The Art workers Coalition. Not an History, in Studio International, November 1970, 173-179.

Lucy Lippard 1973, Escape Attempts; in L. Lippard, Six years: the dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972; a cross-reference book of information on some aesthetic boundaries, New York, Praeger. VII-XII.

Francesco Ventrella and Giovanna Zapperi (eds.), Feminism and Art in Postwar Italy: The Legacy of Carla Lonzi, Bloomsbury, 2022.

Caroline A. Jones, Biennial Culture: A Longer History, in E. Filipovic, M. Van Hal, S. Ovstebo, the Biennial Reader, Hatje Cantz, Bergen Kunsthalle, 2010. 66-88.

Paul O’Neill, “Biennial Culture and the emergence of a globalized curatorial discourse: curating in the context of large biennials and large scale exhibitions since 1989”; In Paul O’Neiil, The Culture of Curating. The Curating of Culture, The MIT Press, 2012; 51-87.

Claire Bishop "Antagonism and relational aesthetics." October 110 (2004): 51-79.

Nicolas Bourriaud. Relational aesthetics. Les presses du réel, 2020.


Marco Baravalle, Curating and Governing. Bourriaud and Obrist: the relational turn of the Curatorship, (unpublished English translation of Italian article)


Paul O’Neill, The Curatorial Turn, From Practice to Discourse (originally published 2007), in The Biennial Reader, Hatje Kantz, Bergen Kunsthalle, 2010

Charles Hesche, “Coda: The Curatorial”, J. P. Martinon (ed.),The Curatorial. A Philosophy of Curating, Bloomsbury, 2013.

Rasheed Araeen, Our Bauhaus, Others Mudhouse, in Third Text, 6 spring 1989, pp. 3-16.

Okwui Enwezor, Modernity And Postcolonial Ambivalence, in South Atlantic Quarterly, 109:3. Summer 2010.

Marco Baravalle, Alterinstitutions and Art. Between Governance and Autonomy. Capture, Subjectivity, Decolonization, Governance, Acceleration, Queering, Prefigurative Economics, in The Journal of Aesthetics And Protest, Issue 11a, 2021.

The exam test is oral. Starting from the presentation of one or more texts chosen by the student, the teacher will proceed to verify the student's mastery of the main concepts discussed in class.

The course will alternate between traditional lectures and seminar sessions. Students will be required to present and discuss some of the texts listed in the bibliography during class.

English

To be updated by the assigned instructor as soon as possible, in any case before the start of the lessons.

oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Circular economy, innovation, work" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development