Course syllabus

 

MUSEUMS 750

SEMESTER 1, 2018

15 points

Course Convenor:

Associate Professor Iain Buchanan

Telephone 373 7599 ext 87271, e-mail: i.buchanan@auckland.ac.nz

Course delivery format:

One two hour seminar each week on Thursdays 3-5 pm

Old Choral Hall Room GO7

(Timetable and room details can be viewed on Student Services Online)

 

Course Description

An examination of museums and art galleries as institutions from their beginnings to the present day. Examines the origins of the museum, Renaissance art collections and private museums, collections formed by artists, the emergence of the public museum, museums of modern art and new generation museums. Themes such as theories of collecting and collections, developments in recent and contemporary museums, innovation and change in museum display and architecture will all be addressed.

 Assessment

The coursework for MUSEUMS 750 is two essays. The first essay is worth 50% each. There is no examination.

The handing in date for the first essay is 19th April 2018.

The second essay is due 24th May 2018. 

Essay length: 2500-3000 words.

 

Seminar Programme

Seminars held in Old Choral Hall GO7 on Thursdays 3-5pm.

 

Semester I

March  01        Introduction: the Museum as a Concept (IB)

            08        The Origins of the Museum: (1) Renaissance Collections of Antique

                        Sculpture (IB)

            15        The Origins of the Museum:  (2) The Studiolo (IB)

            22        The Origins of the Museum: (3) Kunst and Wunder-

                        Kammern in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (IB)

            29        The Beginnings of Public Museums (1) The British Museum (IB)

 

 Easter Break: 30 March­-­14 April 

 

April     19        The Beginnings of Public Museums (2) The Victoria and Albert

                        Museum (IB)

            26        The Beginnings of Public Museums (3) Ethnography:  The Pitt Rivers

                        Museum, Oxford

May     03        Private Artists’ Museums and Collections (1) Rubens’s and

                        Rembrandt’s Houses (IB)

           10        Private Artists’ Museums and Collections: (2) Degas, Knopff and

                       Moreau (IB)

           17        The Concept of the Modern Art Museum:MoMA and the Guggenheim Museum, New York (IB)

           24        New Generation Museums (1): The Getty Museum, Los Angeles (IB)

           31        New Generation Museums (2): The Guggenheim, Bilbao (IB)

 

Study Break and Exams: 2 June – 25 June

Inter-semester Break:  26 June – 14 July

 

Semester 2

 July     19        New Generation Museums: (3) Te Papa/Museum of New Zealand as a

                      Post-modern Museum (IB)

            26        Artists and Museums (1): The Artist’s Studio and the Museum

Aug.     02        Artists and Museums (2): Mondrian’s Studio

.           09        Artists and Museums (2): Sophie Calle

            16        Student seminar – topic to be arranged

            23        Student seminar - topic to be arranged

 

Mid –semester Break 27 August- 8 September

 

Sept.   13        Student seminar – topic to be arranged         

           20        Student Seminar – topic to be arranged

           27        Student Seminar – topic to be arranged

Oct.    04        Student Seminar – topic to be arranged

           11        Student Seminar – topic to be arranged

           18        Student Seminar – topic to be arranged

                       

 End of Course

Study Break and Exams: 20 October – 12 November

  

Recommended Texts

General

 T. Bennett The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics, London, 1995

 O. Impey and A. MacGregor The Origins of Museums, Oxford, 1985

 A. Macgregor Curiosity and Enlightenment: Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth

to the Nineteenth Centuries, New Haven and London, 2007

 J.  Elsner and R.Cardinal The Cultures of Collecting, London. 1994

 S.  Pearce Museums, Objects and Collections: A Cultural Study, Washington, 1993

 S.  Pearce On Collecting, London, 1995

 E.  Hooper-Greenhill Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge, London, 1992

 E.  Hooper-Greenhill Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture, London, 2000

 R.  Greenberg,B. Ferguson, and S. Nairn,(eds.) Thinking About Exhibitions, London/New York, 1996

 E.    Barker(ed.) Contemporary Cultures of Display, New Haven, 1999

 S.   Crane I. Museums and Memory, Stanford, 2000

 I.     Karp and S. Lavine Museums & Communities: The Politics of Public Culture, Washington, 1992

V.     Newhouse Towards a New Museum, New York, 1998

J.     Spalding The Poetic Museum: Reviving Historic Collections, Munich, 2002

D.    Preziosi, and C.Farago, (eds.) Grasping the World: the Idea of the Museum, London, 2003

S.     Macdonald (ed.)     A Companion to Museum Studies, Oxford, 2006

B.    Carbonnell (ed)       Museum studies: An Anthology of Contexts, Oxford, 2004

B.      Stafford,                 Artful science: Enlightenment, Entertainment and the Eclipse of Visual Education,                                        Cambridge Mass., 1994

C.      Paul(ed)                The First Modern Museums of Art, Los Angeles, 2012    

  

[1] Renaissance Museums (1) Antique Sculpture Gardens

 

Hulsen, C., and Egger, H.,      Die romischen Skizzenbucher von

                                               Marten van Heemskerck, 2 vols, Berlin [1913;1916]. Facsimile ed., Soest, [1975].

Haskell, F., and Penny, N.,     Taste and the Antique, New Haven, London [1981].

Bober, P., and

Rubenstein, R.,                       Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture, London [1986].

Meulen, M. van der,               "Cardinal Cesi's Antique Sculpture Garden:

Notes on a Painting by Hendrick van Cleef III", The Burlington Magazine, CXVI [1974], pp.14-24.

Rubenstein, R,                        “’Tempus edax rerum’: a newly discovered painting by

                                                Hermannus Posthumus”, The Burlington Magazine,

                                                CXXVII [1985], pp.485-93.

Dacos, N,                                “Hermannus Posthumus. Rome, Mantua, Landshut”,

                                                The Burlington Magazine, CXXVII [1985], pp. 493-98.

Kathleen Wren Christian        Enterprise Without End: Antique Collections in Renaissance Rome c.1350-1527, New Haven and London [2010].

 

 Renaissance Museums (2)      Studioli

 Thornton, D.,                          The Scholar in His Study, New Haven and London [1997].

Liebenwein, W.,                     Studiolo: Die Entstehung eines Raumtyps und seine

                                               Entwicklung bis um 1600, Berlin [1977].

Raggio, O.,                            The Gubbio Studiolo and its Conservation, New York [2000]

Renaissance Museums (3)      Kunst and Wunderkammern

 

Daston, L. and Park, K.,         Wonders and the Order of Nature

Steicher, E.,                            Die Kunst und Wunderkammern der Habsburger, Vienna, Munich, Zurich [1979].

Kauffmann, T. da Costa,        “From treasury to museum: The collections of the Austrian Hapsburgs”, in Elsner                                                       and Impey, op.cit.

A.Macgregor                          Curiosity and Enlightenment: Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to                                                 the Nineteenth Centuries, New Haven, 2007

Findlen, P.                               Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting and Scientific culture in Early                                                           modern Italy, Berkley, 1994

Stafford, B                              Artful science: Enlightenment, Entertainment and the Eclipse of Visual                                                             Education, Cambridge Mass., 1994

 

Victoria and Albert Museum (4)

Wilk, C & Humphrey, N.,         Creating the British Galleries at the V&A

Bonython, E and Burton, A.   The Great Exhibitor: The Life and Work of Henry Cole

Baker, M and Richardson,B.  A Grand Design: The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum

 

Rubens and Rembrandt Houses (5) 

Muller, J.                                 Rubens: The Artist as Collector

Belkin, K.                               A House of art : Rubens as Collector

Scheller, R.                             “Rembrandt en de encyclopedische kunstkamer”, Oud Holland, 84 (1969), pp. 81-                                                   147

Van der Boogert, B.                Rembrandt’s Treasures, exhib. cat. Rembrandthius (2000)

Strauss, W & Van der Meulen, M. The Rembrandt Documents

Shama, S.                                Rembrandt’s Eyes

Schwartz, G.                            Rembrandt: His Life, His Paintings

  

Contemporary Artists and the Museum (6)

 McShine, K.,                           The Museum as Muse: Artists Reflect

Putnam, J.,                              Art and Artifact: the Museum as Medium

  

New Generation Museums (7)

 Barreneche, R.                        New Museums

Sachs, A (ed.),                        Museums for a New Millenium: Concepts, Projects, Buildings

Schneider, A.,                         Creating the Musée d’Orsay

Taniguchi, Y.& Riley, T.,          Nine Museums

  

 Workload and deadlines for submission of coursework:           

The University of Auckland's expectation is that students spend 10 hours per week on a 15-point course, including time in class and personal study. Students should manage their academic workload and other commitments accordingly. Deadlines for coursework are set by course convenors and will be advertised in course material. You should submit your work on time. In extreme circumstances, such as illness, you may seek an extension but you may be required to provide supporting information before the assignment is due. Late assignments without a pre-approved extension may be penalised by loss of marks – check course information for details.