Curating Ancient Art’s History

LINK TO DOWNLOAD THE BOOK YOU SHOULD USE AS A REFERENCE: https://u1lib.org/book/3676617/c5eda8

The Assignment:

This semester, you have looked at a wide variety of ancient artworks
from Paleolithic to the Gothic periods . This assignment asks that you
curate a hypothetical exhibition of five artworks
that we have studied in this class according to a theme or topic of
your choice. As is explained further in the supplementary articles
linked to in this assignment module, an art curator is someone whose job
it is to organize exhibitions for museums and other cultural
institutions and events. A key role that any curator plays is to provide a framework for the works of art that they have selected to display for an audience, and to explain through didactic materials
(e.g. labels on the walls of galleries) important details about these
artworks and how they pertain to the theme of the show. An important
first stage of any curatorial project is to make what is called a “checklist“.
The exhibition checklist is the document that provides an explanation
of the theme of the show, and then provides a short description and
explanation for each artwork that is to be included in the show.

For this project, you will assume a curatorial role and produce such a checklist for your proposed exhibition.

• one PDF, an final curatorial plan that includes the following:

• • Page(s) 1: a written curatorial statement of at least 500 words that contains an exhibition title, explains the theme of your exhibition, and provides evidence for why this specific theme or topic is important to an understanding of some aspect of modern art history.
    Some examples of questions you might address in your statement: what
    significance does this topic play in the wider history of ancient art?
    What new insights does this theme offer a viewer interested in the
    history of art from various ancient cultures? How has this topic changed
    over the long historical arch of the pre-historic era to the 14th
    century? How does this theme look different in different cultural
    contexts and why do this matter? What kind of conversation do you wish
    to provoke for an audience based on your selection of works? This text
    should be single-spaced and fit on one page.
• • Pages 2 – 6: For each of the five artworks of your exhibition, you should include at the top of each page a
    small thumbnail image of each artwork with identifying artist’s name
    (if known), date, dimensions, and medium (all of which is located in
    your textbook); below this information, you should include a written
    explanation of at least 200 words that describes how this artwork
    pertains to your exhibition theme.

To be clear, you provide one page of identification/explanation for
each individual artwork that you select for your exhibition checklist (5
pages); this, plus your one-page curatorial statement (1 page) brings
you to a total of 6 pages.

In your writing, you should include pertinent historical context and
formal detail. Imagine that these short written explanations are your
wall text, explaining to an audience some key details about each piece
and how it relates to the larger theme of the exhibition. This text
should be single spaced and fit on one page per artwork. Please see the sample in this module for an idea of how to format your checklist.

Assignment Ground Rules:

This assignment is quite open, allowing you to pursue your interests
and make interesting connections between artworks in a wide variety of
ways. Within the basic terms of the assignment above, I encourage
creativity and risk-taking in your ideas; however, there are a few rules
that must be followed to receive full credit:

• there must be at least 800 years between the earliest work of art in your exhibition and the most recently produced one.
  Part of the point of this assignment is for you to think expansively
  and to make connections across the history that we’ve covered in the
  course. You can gear your show more to one end of the historical
  spectrum or the other or emphasize a particular culture; but your
  project needs to demonstrate this historical breadth.
• you must work with artists that we have looked at this semester.
  You can select works of art and architecture discussed in the textbook
  or in the Webcourses modules. You can also curate a very strong
  exhibition using only art works discussed in course content, requiring
  little outside research.
• your exhibition theme should be precise and specific.
  Exhibition ideas such as “The History of Ancient Art”, “Great Art
  Through the Ages”, “Beautiful Art”, etc. are far too broad to provide
  your audience with a specific insight. Even slightly more specific
  topics such as “Women in Art”, “Art and Nature”, “Art and Religion” are a
  bit broad and could be narrowed to make an even more compelling show
  (so, for example, “Representing Gender in the Female Nude”, “Idealized
  Landscapes”, “The Art of Political Persuasion”). You can think of your
  exhibition theme as you would a thesis of a more traditional essay; it
  is the specific and concise idea that frames your discussion of a
  particular topic. In order to produce a good discussion, you have to be
  specific about what you’re talking about.

Rubric

Final Project Rubric