Curatorial Studies Minor: Degree Information

This course introduces artists and designers to the history, theory, and diverse practices of contemporary curation. Through readings, discussions, writing, research, and field work, students consider the evolving roles of museums, galleries, and other emerging curatorial spaces, both virtual and real, as well as the history and contemporary practices of collecting and display. Throughout the course students assess the roles of curators and their audiences, paying special attention to issues of power and politics. The course provides students with the requisite vocabulary for understanding how curators produce knowledge and the ways in which aesthetics, history, culture, and society are explored through exhibition practices.

The Liberal Arts Advanced Seminar: Curation enables students to pursue their own research and writing goals within a seminar setting. This class is intended for juniors and seniors who have declared the Curatorial Studies Minor. Projects are student-originated and consist of both a written piece and a curation project. Class sessions are discussion-based and interactive. Group learning is emphasized.

Art in the Cities explores the relationship between art and urban space with the Twin Cities as its primary site of investigation. This seminar-style course focuses on current exhibitions and curatorial practices in museums, galleries, artist-run spaces, and other project spaces located throughout the Twin Cities. In-class discussions examining the history and contemporary practice and politics of display in urban contexts with some emphasis on social, public, interventionist, and community-based practices is equally balanced with activities outside the classroom such as exhibition visits, artist talks, and performances.

In this course students plan and implement projects in collaboration with community partners to express identity or sense of place, address concerns, and support local aspirations through the arts. Topics covered include surveying contemporary and historical arts-based community projects, classroom training in group work facilitation, theory and criticism in the field, cultural diversity and social justice issues, and grant writing. Taking this course is an exciting way to earn credit while building relationships with the greater Twin Cities community through the development of art and design works.

Working with the Collection is an interdisciplinary studio course that concentrates on the holdings of an individual museum and the artist's response to it. In the first half of the course, students visit with the curators and exhibition designers to understand the process of collecting, and then proceed to work with the study and exhibition collections. The second half of the semester concentrates on studio work in response to the collection, culminating in an exhibition.

This course introduces students to contemporary printmaking trends and concepts in relation to digital technology. Emphasis is placed on experimentation and discovery through various techniques, including exposure to CNC and laser cutter technology for making printable matrices, the inkjet printer as a painting tool, the scanner as a camera, and the production of hybrid prints that combine digital printing, papers, and fabrics with traditional print. Through screenprinting, relief, artists’ books, and digital output, this class considers the shift and overlap of old and new techniques as a vital investigation of contemporary visual culture. Contemporary artists working in digital and print-based media are discussed.

This studio course covers contemporary and historical issues pertaining to art in public places, public art, public process, and multidisciplinary collaboration. Students investigate both “site-specific” and “site as venue” public works through individual and collaborative projects and proposals. All media are considered appropriate for inclusion in the public realm. Design, planning, and presentation techniques include the RFQ, RFP, preparation of proposals, public presentations, design and presentation drawings, scale-model building, site planning, and logistics. Students can create public works to be installed in the MCAD sculpture garden. This course is made possible in part by Donna and Cargill MacMillan Jr.

This class does not meet at MCAD and is conducted entirely outside of the school environment. For the duration of the class, the city becomes the studio, where observation, exploration, inspiration, and interventions of varying sorts take place. Students of art and design practicing in any media are encouraged to participate. Individually and as a group, students roam urban and rural environments armed with cameras (photo and video) and other gear (or none at all) that might be useful for creating and documenting/capturing various "engagements." The course is guided by four primary goals: 1) to reconsider the definition of the art studio (where art is made vs. where it could be made); 2) to reconsider the definition of artwork (precious art object vs. temporary ephemeral occurrences); 3) to reconsider the differences between life and art (art in your life vs. your life in art); 4) to directly affect the world with work. Work produced in the above framework may range from manipulation of found, natural, and/or machine-/hand-made objects and materials to situations, performances, and actions executed in public spaces.

This seminar-style course explores photographic culture through focused readings in the theory and history of photography, covering the period from 1839 to the present. These texts facilitate discussions of the ways in which technological transformations and concepts like truthfulness, documentary ethics, and authorship are presented and negotiated in the work of photographers. This course is an opportunity for students to discuss the historical and changing philosophical nature of the photographic medium.

In this course students consider major issues in contemporary design across a range of design fields as articulated through critical texts and contemporary developments. Students examine contemporary design theory along with related work and processes. This course is taught as a seminar with some lecture.

The graphic novel is an art form that offers the best of both worlds. While gaining legitimacy as a literary/art form, it retains the excitement and unique properties of reading a comic book. Students in this course read, discuss, and analyze graphic novels, as well as engage in critical scholarship on and about the graphic novel form. Looking at graphic novels in genres like mystery, superhero, manga, memoir, history and politics, or works beyond categorization, students examine how these stories are structured: the forms of novel, novella, and short story help differentiate and explain the subtleties of these forms. The class focuses on social, structural, and thematic issues of these specific texts and explores the possibilities of the form itself.

In this course, students consider major issues in contemporary curatorial studies across a range of locations, markets, and fields as articulated through critical texts and contemporary developments. Students examine curatorial studies theory and a wide range of curation practices. This course is taught as a seminar with some lectures.

This course allows students a close look at the materials and techniques used in both historical and contemporary art conservation. The class will work with conservators from the Midwest Art Conservation Center and items in local collections to gain an overview of the technical study of art history through hands-on experience studying and evaluating works of art, lab experiences, and readings and discussions of issues and debates in art conservation. Combining science, art history, and museum studies, this course seeks to explore the materiality of art-making from the perspectives of conservator, artist, and audience.

Ethnography is the primary tool of anthropologists and is a powerful method for analyzing cultural dynamics, objects, and settings. A basic understanding of ethnographic approaches enables artists and designers to work more sensitively, effectively, and ethically in the public sphere. This course introduces a variety of ethnographic methods, including traditional participant observation, life histories, interviewing, visual ethnography, and ethnographic marketing. Students achieve a basic understanding of ethnographic approaches and apply them in their own ethnographic fieldwork.

Funding creative ventures requires developing proposals that are clearly, concisely, and persuasively written. This course covers the essential skills needed for effective proposal writing in creative and commercial settings. Students concept, write, and revise project proposals using grant templates, crowdfunding platforms, and proposal documents as references. Through case studies, students examine various funding channels, then develop project proposals with matching budget projections that are delivered through writing and presentations.

Public, local, and community history are rapidly growing fields that combine the skills of historical research, community outreach, public and engaged art-making, and marketing and communications. Public, local, and community historians are deeply engaged with their communities over questions of placemaking, identity, authenticity, politics, and culture, and they are essential contributors to debates over the content and representation of our shared heritages, commemoration, and remembrance. This course will introduce students to some of the critical questions surrounding public history and commemoration such as the removal of problematic monuments, debates over appropriate commemoration and interpretation, the decolonization of US history at the grassroots level, and communities’ searches for usable pasts, while at the same time introducing students to the contemporary practices of public, local, and community historians.