Gallery as Site for Social Change

Prerequisites: All OF THE FOLLOWING: ARTDES 300: Any 300 Level Studio.

Description: This course starts with a brief historical overview of galleries and museums from the cabinets of curiosities, the development of national museums that displayed artworks and artifacts from colonized cultures, to modern and contemporary art galleries of the 21^st century. Students read, listen to, and research feminist, queer, decolonial, third-world curators and artists who have critiqued the power dynamics and institutional hierarchies from within them, to better understand how, by treating the gallery as a site for social change, curators and artists have radically transformed display and exhibition practices to make them more inclusive, equitable, and accessible. The second half of the course is conducted via hands-on learning. Students develop a curatorial statement, research artists, conduct studio visits, provide feedback, and invite artists to participate in an exhibition that they curate at Stamps Gallery. Students meet periodically in the Stamps Gallery in addition to meeting in a studio classroom. In doing so they also learn about the best practices in installing artworks in all media and key elements of public programming, from how to write a press release to the role of didactic texts in gallery settings.