VSA4023

Museum practice and research

Leigh Astbury and Anne Marsh

10 points
* 2.5 hours per week for 4 weeks and 2 days per week during the 9 week period of internship
* Second semester
* Clayton
* Corequisites: Two subjects at fourth-year level in visual arts or an appropriate discipline

Objectives Upon completion of this subject students will have gained some experience of the range of activities in museum work; developed an understanding of the aims and contemporary operations of museums; learnt and practised some methods of original research undertaken in museums.

Synopsis This subject is based on a practice of internships for students at art galleries, museums or contemporary art spaces. It is designed to provide students with first hand experience of working within the museum/gallery system while introducing them to the types of research customarily undertaken in such institutions. After several preliminary seminars held in the Monash University Gallery, students will be assigned to a museum/gallery in which they will work for two days per week over a period of nine weeks, under the direction of the relevant director, curator or museum person. In consultation with the supervisors-in-charge of placements and the gallery/museum personnel, students will undertake a research project of specific relevance to the institution in which they serve their internship. They may, for example, be asked to contribute towards research for an exhibition or project in which the institution is currently engaged. In addition to the research project, students will be required to undertake a short catalogue exercise in respect to a work of art/object of material culture in the collection of the gallery/museum.

Assessment Catalogue exercise (1500 words): 25%
* Research project (4000 words): 75%
* Internship practical work (Equivalent 2000 words)

Preliminary reading

Crimp D `On the museum's ruins', in Hal Foster (ed.) The anti-aesthetic: Essays on postmodern culture Bay, 1985
O'Doherty B Inside the white cube: The ideology of the gallery space Lapis, 1986
Smith B The death of the artist as hero OUP, 1988, section titled `Art and the museum'.