Classical Art in the RISD Museum: Class Schedule

SCHEDULE OF CLASSES AND READING ASSIGNMENTS

SEPTEMBER 3:
Introduction; The RISD Museum of Art

Browse through website of the American Association of Museums- http://www.aam-us.org
C. Duncan, “The Art Museum as Ritual,” in Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums, New York, 1995, 7-20.

Visit The RISD Museum and complete MUSEUM SURVEY.

SEPTEMBER 10: CLASS WILL MEET AT THE RISD MUSEUM
History of Museums

Skim: C. Woodward, “Acquisition, Preservation, and Education: A History of the Museum,” in A Handbook of the Museum of Art, Providence, 1985, pp. 11-60.
N. Harris, “The Divided House of the American Art Museum,” Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Summer 1999): 33-56.
Hammond et al., “The Role of the University Art Museum and Gallery,” Art Journal, Fall 2006, 21-39.
A. McClellan, “A Brief History of the Art Museum Public,” in A. McClellan, ed. Art and its Publics: Museum Studies at the Millenium, Malden, MA, 2003, 1-49.

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT #1 (MUSEUM SURVEY) DUE IN CLASS

SEPTEMBER 17: CLASS WILL MEET AT THE RISD MUSEUM
Objects: Observation, Analysis, Conservation

M. Yourcenar, “That Mighty Sculptor, Time,” in M. Price, et al., eds. Historical and Philosophical Issues in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Los Angeles, 1996, 212-15.
E. Hendrix, “Painted Ladies of the Early Bronze Age,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (Winter 1997/98): 4-15.
R. Cohon, Deceit and Discovery: Archaeology and The Forger’s Craft, Kansas City, 1996, 17-45.
J.H. Stoner, “The Mortality of Things,” in A.W. Schutz, Caring for Your Collections, New York, 1992, 10-17.
K. Severson, “Why Roman sculptures look the way they do,” in Rethinking the Romans: New Views of Ancient Sculpture, 2001, 17-20.
M. Elston, “Conservation and Care of Ancient Ceramic Objects,” in A.J. Clark, M. Elston, M.L. Hart, eds. Looking at Greek Vases, 2002, 22-29.

SEPTEMBER 24: CLASS WILL MEET AT THE RISD MUSEUM
Museum Education

Part 1: Objects and their Interpretation(s)

R. Burnham and E. Kai-Kee, “The Art of Teaching in the Museum,” Journal of Aesthetic Education, 39/1 (Spring 2005): 65-76.
T. Barrett, “Principles for Interpreting,” Art Education (September 1994): 8-13.
S. Weil, “The Proper Business of the Museum: Ideas or Things?” in Rethinking the Museum and Other Meditations, Washington, DC, 1990, 43-56.
V.L. Zolberg, “’An Elite Experience for Everyone’: Art Museums, the Public, and Cultural Literacy,” in D.J. Sherman and I. Rogoff, eds. Museum/Culture: Histories, Discourses, Spectacles, Minneapolis, 1994, 49-65.

Part 2: Writing for Museum Audiences

Label writing handout – to be distributed at The RISD Museum

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT #2 DUE IN CLASS

OCTOBER 1: CLASS WILL MEET AT THE RISD MUSEUM
Part 1: Greek Art: Pre-Historic to Geometric

The Ancient Greek World, 1-5.

Part 2: Greek Art: Archaic to Hellenistic

The Ancient Greek World, 6-38.

OCTOBER 8: CLASS WILL MEET AT THE RISD MUSEUM
Etruscan Art

Guide to the Etruscan and Roman Worlds, 8-39.

OCTOBER 15: CLASS WILL MEET AT THE RISD MUSEUM
Roman Art

Guide to the Etruscan and Roman Worlds, 40-89.
Borromeo, G.E.; Goulet, C.C.; Hollinshead, M.B.; Ridgway, B.S.; Severson, K.J.P.; misc. essays and catalogue entries in Rethinking the Romans: New Views of Ancient Sculpture, 2001, 4-35.

OCTOBER 22: CLASS WILL MEET AT THE RISD MUSEUM
Presentations of Labels and Wall Texts and Critique
WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT # 3 (final versions of labels and wall texts) DUE IN CLASS

OCTOBER 29: CLASS WILL MEET AT THE RISD MUSEUM
Part 1: Museum Professions

J. Finkel, “Impossible Job. Here’s What You Need for It,” The New York Times, July 29, 2007, 22-23.
P. de Montebello, “The Art Museum’s Most Valuable Currency: Curatorial Expertise,” Inaugural Address, American Federation of the Arts’ Curators Forum, New York, April 29, 2001.
D. Rice, “Museum Education Embracing Uncertainty,” Art Bulletin (March 1995): 15-20.

Part 2: Exhibition Design

V. Newhouse, “The Complexities of Context: How Place Affects Perception,” in Art and the Power of Placement, New York, 2005, 42-107, 286-290.
J. Walsh, “Pictures, Tears, Lights, and Seats,” in J. Cuno, ed. Whose Muse? Art Museums and the Public Trust, 2004, 77-101.

NOVEMBER 5: CLASS WILL MEET AT SAYLES 300
Part 1: Cultural Property

K.A. Appiah, “Whose Culture is It Anyway?” in Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, New York, 2006, 115-135.
J.H. Merryman, “A Licit International Trade in Cultural Objects,” in K. Fitz Gibbon, ed. Who Owns the Past? Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law, New Brunswick, NJ, 2005, 269-289.
C. Lyons, “Objects and Identities: Claiming and Reclaiming the Past,” in E. Barkan and R. Bush, eds. Claiming the Stones/Naming the Bones: Cultural Property and the Negotiation of National and Ethnic Identity, Los Angeles, 2002, 116-137.
American Association of Museums (AAM), “AAM Statement on Cultural Property Issues,” June 12, 2006
Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), “Resolutions on the Importation of Antiquities,” December 1993
Optional: C. Chippendale and D.W.J. Gill, “Material and Intellectual Consequences of Esteem for Cycladic Figures,” AJA 97 (1993) 601-59. Available through JSTOR
Optional: C. Chippendale and D.W.J. Gill, “Material Consequences of Contemporary Classical Collecting,” AJA 104 (2000) 463-511. Available through JSTOR

Part 2: Other Ethical Issues

American Association of Museums (AAM), Code of Ethics for Museums, 2000
AIA, “Statement on Museum Acquisitions and Loans of Antiquities and Ancient Art Works,” March 2006
AIA, “Principles for Museum Acquisitions of Antiquities,” March 2006
Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), “Notes on Art Museums’ Use of Proceeds from the Sale of Works of art from the Collection,” April 30, 1993
E. Strout, “Struggling Colleges Debate the Propriety of Selling Their Art,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 1, 2007, A23
M. Kimmelman, “What Price Love?” The New York Times, July 17, 2005
M. Kimmelman, “Art, Money and Power,” The New York Times, May 11, 2005
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, “Code of Ethics,” 1997
R. Kennedy, “Buffalo’s Pain: Giving Up Old Art to Gain New,” The New York Times, March 14, 2007
V. Ward, “The Getty’s Blue Period,” Vanity Fair (March 2006): 218-35.

NOVEMBER 12: CLASS WILL MEET AT SAYLES 300
VISIT TO HAFFENREFFER MUSEUM
Other Museums:

C. Clarke, “From Theory to Practice: Exhibiting African Art in the Twenty-First Century,” in A. McClellan, ed. Art and Its Publics: Museum Studies at the Millenium, Malden, MA, 2003, 164-82.
I. Gaskell, “Sacred to Profane and Back Again,” in A. McClellan, ed. Art and Its Publics: Museum Studies at the Millenium, Malden, MA, 2003, 148-62.
Browse through the website of the Museum with no frontiers – www.discoverislamicart.org

NOVEMBER 26: NO CLASS Thanksgiving Break

DECEMBER 3: FINAL PRESENTATIONS

DECEMBER 10: FINAL PRESENTATIONS

DECEMBER 10, end of class period: FINAL PAPER DUE
NOTE: WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS #4 (Response to a Reading) DUE IN CLASS FOR WHICH READING IS DUE and #5 (Response to a Museum Event) DUE THE NEXT CLASS AFTER THE EVENT
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