COURSE MATERIALS

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Length: 2 pages. Due: week 2.
Discuss Delacroix’s Women of Algiers (1834) on display at the Louvre in terms of the way it is exhibited and explained to museum visitors.

Length: Approximately 10 pages. Due: week 11.
Write a critical research paper on one of the following institutions. (Discuss your specific topic with the instructor prior to writing your paper):
*[FR] = site in French

• Musée Cognacq-Jay [FR]
• Musée Jacquemart-André
• Musée du Moyen-Age Cluny
• Musée de la Vie Romantique [FR]
• Musée Jean-Jacques Henner
• Musée Delacroix [FR]
• Musée Gustave Moreau
• Musée Rodin
• Musée Bourdelle [FR]
• Musée Maillol
• Musée Zadkine [FR]
• Dali Espace Montmartre
• Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson
• Fondation Dubuffet [FR]
• Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme
• Musée des Arts et Métiers [FR]
• Musée des Arts Décoratifs
• Musée des Arts et Traditions Populaires [FR]
• Musée des Arts Asiatiques - Guimet
• Jeu de Paume [FR]
• Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain
• Le Plateau
• Musée de la Musique (La Villette)
• Musée Galliéra [FR]

A 10mn presentation on the current temporary exhibition of your choice, subject to instructor approval.
Students’ presentations are expected to be critical of the curatorial choices made about what to show and how. Students will need to think about the success and shortcomings of the way the objects are displayed, explained, promoted and what kinds of agendas might have motivated the exhibition as a whole.

Fall 2005 exhibitions include:

• Grand Palais “Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele, Moser” (10/04/2005-01/09/2006)
• Louvre “Girodet” (09/21/2005-01/02/2006)
• Orsay “L'Art Russe dans la Seconde Moitié du XIXème siècle” (20/09/2005 - 8/1/2006)
• Guimet “Trésors d’art du Vietnam ” (09/27/2005-02/13/2006)
• Antiquités nationales (Saint-Germain-en-Laye) “Objets de pouvoir en Nouvelle Guinée” (Fall 2005)
• Centre Pompidou “Big Bang, Destruction et Création dans l’Art du XXème Siècle” (06/15/2005-02/17/2005)
• Grand Palais "Les arts graphiques sous le règne de Louis XVI" 29/9/2005 - 2/1/2006
• FIAC (contemporary art fair) 6/10/2005- 10/10/2005

• BNF Richelieu « AM Cassandre » 20/9/2005- 4/12/2005
• Centre Pompidou « Dday. Le Design aujourd'hui » until 17/10/2005
• Centre Pompidou « Antonio Segui » until 29/9/2005
• Fondation Cartier « J'en rêve » until 9/10/2005
• Jeu de Paume, site Sully « Pierre Verger » 13/9/2005 - 24/12/2005
• Maison Rouge « Berlinde de Bruyckere » until 9/10/2005
• Maison Rouge « Arnulf Rainer et sa collection d'art brut » until 9/10/2005
• Musée d'art et d'histoire du judaïsme « Kupka, le cantique des cantiques » 28/9/2005 - 8/1/2006

• Musée Carnavalet « Trois photographes humanistes. Barzilay, Hervé, Ronis » 21/9/2005-15/1/2006
• Musée Carnavalet « Un amour de Paris - Dorothy Bohm » 21/9/2005 - 15/1/2006
• Musée Cernuschi « Céladon, trésors céramiques de Chine » 9/9/2005-30/12/2005
• Musée Jacquemart-André « J.-L. David » 4/10/2005-31/1/2006
• Musée Picasso « Picasso : la passion du dessin » 27/9/2005-9/1/2006
• Musée de la vie romantique « La collection Brasiliana » until 27/11/2005
• Palais de Tokyo « Translation » until 18/9/2005
• Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson « Bill Brandt » 21/9/2005- 18/12/2005
• Also see list of temporary exhibitions held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Richelieu or Mitterand sites), Archives Nationales, Maison Européenne de la photographie, Institut du Monde Arabe, Jeu de Paume.

COURSE SCHEDULE

Week 1. September 12-16
The Museum as Cultural Institution  

Session 1: Introduction
Session 2: Musée Carnavalet [FR]

• Sherman and Rogoff, “Introduction: Frameworks for Critical Analysis” in Museum Culture. Histories, Discourses, Spectacles, University of Minnesota Press , 1994,
  pp. ix-xx [CR]
• Collard, “French Cultural Policy: the Special Role of the State” in Contemporary French Cultural Studies, ed. Kidd and Reynolds, 2000, pp.38-50 [CR]

Week 2. September 19-23
The Museum Contested

Session 1: Utopia or Mausoleum?

• Adorno, “The Valéry Proust Museum” in Prisms, N. Spearman, 1955, pp. 175-185 [CR]
• Crimp, “On the Museum’s Ruins” in The Anti-Aeshetic. Essays on Postmodern Culture, ed. Foster, Bay Press, 1983, pp. 43-56 [CR]

ORAL PRESENTATION PREFERENCES DUE

Session 2: Musée du Louvre

• Zolberg, “‘An Elite Experience for Everyone’: Art Museums, the Public and Cultural Literacy” in Museum Culture. Histories. Discourses. Spectacles, ed. Sherman and Rogoff, University of Minnesota , 1994, pp. 49-65 [CR]
• Bourdieu, Darbel, Schnapper excerpts from The Love of Art: European Art Museums and their Public in Art and Its Histories: A Reader, ed. Edwards, Yale University Press, 1999, (section six “Contemporary Cultures of Display”), pp. 307-312 [CR]
• Jordanova, “Objects of Knowledge: an Historical Perspective on Museums” in The New Museology, ed. Vergo, Reaktion Books, 1989, pp. 22-40 [CR]

FIRST WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT DUE (2 pages)

Week 3. September 26-30
The Dilemma of Museums of Modern Art

Session 1: Realism, Impressionism: Origins of the Avant-garde

• Eisenman, “The Rhetoric of Realism: Courbet and the Origins of the Avant-Garde” in Nineteenth Century Art. A Critical History, ed. Eisenman, Thames & Hudson , 1994, pp. 222-240 [CR]
• Fer, “Introduction. What is Modern?” in Modernity and Modernism: French Painting in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Frascina, Yale University Press, 1993, pp. 3-48 [CR]

Session 2: Musée Marmottan-Monet

• Nochlin, “Manet and the Impressionists” in Nineteenth Century Art. A Critical History, ed. Eisenman, Thames & Hudson , 1994, pp. 282-298 [CR]
• Georgel, “The Museum as Metaphor in Nineteenth-Century France ” in Museum Culture. Histories. Discourses. Spectacles, ed. Sherman and Rogoff, University of Minnesota Press, 1994, pp. 113-122 [CR]

Week 4. October 3-7
Curator versus Art Historian?

Session 1: Post-Impressionist Painting and Early Abstraction

• Nochlin, “Mass Culture and Utopia: Seurat and Neoimpressionism” in Nineteenth Century Art. A Critical History, pp. 318-331; Eisenman “Symbolism and the Dialectics of Retreat” in ibid, pp. 356-388 [CR]

Session 2: Musée d’Orsay

• Edwards, “Three Extracts on the Musée d’Orsay from Le Débat no. 44, 1987” in Art and Its Histories. A Reader, pp. 282-286 [CR]
• Rosen and Zerner, “The Judgment of Paris ” in New York Review of Books, 34, 3, 1987 [CR]
• Boime, Rosen, Zerner, “The Avant-Garde and the Academy: An Exchange” in New York Review of Books, 34, 12, 1987 [CR]
• House, “Orsay Observed”, Burlington Magazine 129, 1007 (1987) p. 67-73
• Mainardi, “Postmodern History at the Musée d’Orsay”, October, vol.41, 1987, pp. 30-52

Week 5. October 10-14
Temporary Exhibits and Narratives of Modern Art

Session 1: Early XXth century avant-gardes

• Janson, “Painting Before World War II” in History of Art, Prentice Hall, 1986,
  pp. 666-672; 681-695 [CR]
• Greenberg, “Modernist Painting” (1961) in Art in Theory 1900-1990. An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Blackwell, 1992, p. 754-760 [CR]

Session 2: Musée d'Orsay exhibition: L'Art Russe dans la Seconde Moitié du XIXeme Siècle

• Moxey, “Panofsky’s Melancolia” in The Practice of Theory. Post-structuralism, Cultural Politics and Art History, Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 65-78 [CR]
• Heumann Gurian, “Noodling around with Exhibition Opportunities” in Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, ed. Karp and Levine, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991, pp. 176-190 [CR]
• Editorial “Art History and the ‘Blockbuster’ Exhibition” in Art Bulletin, vol.68, n.3, 1986, pp.358-359 and reply by Freedberg, Jackson-Stops, Spear in Art Bulletin, vol.69, n.2, 1987, pp. 295-298

Week 6. October 17-21
Museums and the Social Order

Session 1: Cubism and Primitivism

• Perry, “‘The Going Away’ – a Preparation for the ‘Modern’?” & “The Decorative, the Expressive and the Primitive” in Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction, Yale University Press, 1993, pp. 8-33 & pp. 46-66 [CR]
• Greenberg, “Primitive Painting” in Art and Culture. Critical Essays, Beacon Press, 1961, pp. 129-132 [CR]
• Goldwater, “Introduction” in Primitivism in Modern Art, Belknap 1986, pp. xix-xxv [CR]

Session 2: Musée Picasso [FR]

• Foster, “The ‘Primitive’ Unconscious of Modern Art, or White Skin Black Masks” in Recordings. Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics, Bay Press, 1985, pp. 181-208 [CR]
• Clifford, “Histories of the Tribal and the Modern” in The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art, Harvard University Press, 1988, pp. 189-214 [CR]

* MIDTERM SLIDE LIST *

Week 7. October 24-28
Politics and the Museum

Session 1: Modernism Ostracized

• Batchelor, “’This Liberty and this Order’: Art in France after the First World War” in Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism: Art Between the Wars, Yale University Press, 1993, pp. 2-30 [CR]
• Grasskamp “‘Degenerate Art’ and Documenta I: Modernism Ostracized” in Museum Culture. Histories. Discourses. Spectacles, pp. 163-196 [CR]

Session 2: MIDTERM EXAMINATION

MIDTERM BREAK: No Classes (October 29 th-November 6 th)

Week 8. November 7-10
Fetishism and Consumption

Session 1: Dada and Surrealism

• Batchelor, “‘This Liberty and this Order’: Art in France after the First World War” in Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism: Art Between the Wars, pp. 30-61 [CR]
• Duchamp, “The Richard Mutt Case” (“Ready Made”, 1917) in Art in Theory, p. 248 [CR]
• Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in Illuminations, Schocken Books, 1968, pp. 217-251 [CR]

ONE PARAGRAPH SUMMARY OF WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT TOPIC DUE

Session 2: Centre Georges Pompidou (I)
Selected Works from the Permanent Collection / “Dada” Temporary Exhibition

• Sherman, “Quatremère/Benjamin/Marx: Art Museums, Aura and Commodity Fetishism” in Museum Culture. Histories. Discourses. Spectacles, pp. 123-143 [CR]
• Baudrillard,“The Beaubourg-effect: Implosion and Deterrence” in October, vol.20, 1982, pp. 3-13
• Davis, “The Idea of a 21st Century Museum” in  Art Journal, vol.35, n.3, 1976, pp. 253-258
• Crew and Sims, “Locating Authenticity: Fragments of a Dialogue” in Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, pp. 159-175 [CR]

Week 9. November 14-18
Museums, Money, Meaning

Session 1: Painting after World War II

• Janson, “Painting since World War II” in History of Art, pp. 695-696; 713-727 [CR]
• Krauss, “The Cultural logic of the Late Capitalist Museum” in October, vol.54, 1990, pp. 3-17

Session 2: Centre Georges Pompidou (II)
Selected Works from the Permanent Collection / “Dada” Temporary Exhibition

• Moulin, “Art Dealers”, “Collectors” in The French Art Market. A Sociological View, Rutgers University Press, 1987, pp. 35-65; 79-106. [ See also App. 2 “Designation and Dimension of Canvases”, p. 183; App. 4. “Typical contracts”, p. 189. ] [CR]
• Prösler, “Museums and Globalization” in Theorizing Museums: Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World, ed. Mac Donald and Fyfe, Blackwell, 1996, pp. 21-44 [CR]
• Interview with Bruno Racine, director of the Centre Pompidou, [Online Audio File in French]

Week 10. November 21-25
From Producer to Consumer: Artists, Dealers, Critics and the Art Market

Session 1: Art criticism, Taste and Museum collecting

• Moulin, “Art Critics” in The French Art Market. A Sociological View, pp. 67-78 [CR]
• Baldwin, Harrison and Ramsden, “Art History, Art Criticism and Explanation” in Pollock and After. The Critical Debate, ed. Frascina, Routledge, 1985, pp.191-216 [CR]

Session 2: Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain

• Parsons, “Judgment” in How We Understand Art: A Cognitive Developmental Account Of Aesthetic Experience, Cambridge University Press, 1987, pp. 121-153 [CR]
• Kirstenblatt-Gimblett, “Disputing Taste” in Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage, University of California Press, 1988, pp. 259-282 [CR]
• Henning, “The Art Museum and the Avant-Garde” in Art Journal, vol.30, n.1, 1970, pp. 20-26

Week 11. November 28 - December 2
Modernizing French Museums

Session 1: The “New” Museums in France

• Poulot, “Identity as Self-Discovery: The Ecomuseum in France ” in Museum Culture. Histories. Discourses. Spectacles, pp. 66-84 [CR]
• Aillagon and Millet, “Modernizing the Cultural Infrastructure” (interview with J.-J. Aillagon, then French minister of culture) in Art Press, 284, 2002 [CR]
• Serota, “Experience or Interpretation: The Dilemma of Museums of Modern Art” in Art and Its Histories: A Reader, 1986, pp. 277-282 [CR]

Session 2: From the Musée de l’Homme [FR] and the MAAO [FR] to the Quai Branly and the Musée de l’Immigration [FR]

• Clifford, “On Collecting Art and Culture” in The Predicament of Culture, pp. 215-251 [CR]
• Ikem Stanley Okoye, “Tribe and Art History” (1996) in Art and Its Histories,
  pp. 261-263 [CR]

SECOND WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT DUE (10 pages)

Week 12. December 5-9
Identity Politics and Cultural Institutions

Session 1: Cultural Policy and Politics

• King, “Museum and Special Exhibitions: Some Issues – No Answers…” in Art Journal, vol.39, n.4, 1980, pp. 303-305
• Duncan , “The Art Museum and the Ritual of Citizenship” in Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, pp. 88-103 [CR]
• Riegel, “Into the Heart of Irony: Ethnographic Exhibitions and the Politics of Difference” in Theorizing Museums: Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World, Part Two, pp. 83-104 [CR]

Class 2: Institut du Monde Arabe

• Said, “Introduction” in Orientalism, Penguin, 2003, pp.1-28 [CR]
• Wallis, “Selling Nations: International Exhibitions and Cultural Diplomacy” in Museum Culture. Histories. Discourses. Spectacles, pp. 265-282 [CR]

Week 13. December 12-16

* FINALS SLIDE LIST *

FINAL EXAMINATION