A Decade of British Art Curating | Curating in the Contemporary: The Art School, Museum, and the Academy

Categorised: Conferences

Tagged: 2012-22: A Decade of British Art Curating

2-6.30, Thursday 17 November

Gorvy Lecture Theatre, Royal College of Art, Battersea and online 

Convened by Victoria Walsh, Professor of Art History and Curating, RCA

2.30-4pm

What does the Curatorial mean for Art History and the Museum, and the priorities of curatorial education?’ 

This panel considers how conventional ideas and practices of curating have been progressively superseded over the last decade by the emergence of the ‘curatorial’ – as an expanded form of practice (programming, commissioning, workshops etc) that has left the art object lagging behind as a key focus of attention. It consider how the ‘curatorial’ challenges the museum time of the collection and archive, and offers a very different focus on mediation, interpretation and documentation for the audience encounter than either art history, cultural studies, or art criticism addresses. In light of this, what kind of knowledge, education, skills and expertise have curators developed over the last decade and what is the future of curatorial education and practice in the next ten years?

Speakers: Dr Ben Cranfield (Senior Tutor CCA/RCA), Kirsty Ogg (Director, New Contmporaries); TBC

4-4.30pm Tea

4.30-6pm

‘Collaboration and research: a question of interdisciplinary?’ 

This panel will consider how collaboration and research has developed between the museum/gallery and academy / art school, and ask whether the original impetus and academicisation of arts practice has changed either the museum / gallery or the academy / art school in any useful or generative way. In addition, it will consider how the increasing emphasis on the interdisciplinary over the last decade has prompted an equivalent increase in the discourse of the interdisciplinary (particularly in relation to the STEM/STEAM agendas), but how much has actually been achieved in practice? With the rise of digital and networked cultures how has the analogue logic of the museum and gallery responded and what impact do new horizontal ways of collaborating impact usefully on questions of specialisms, expertise, and audiences. Is interdisciplinary collaboration viable and desirable?

Speakers: Gavin Wade (Director of Eastside Projects, and Senior Research Fellow at Birmingham City University), Professor Andrea Phillips (BALTIC Professor and Director of BxNU Institute, Northumbria University & BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art)