Final Project Amid Covid-19: 

While under normal circumstances this course culminates with a visit to and analysis of an art exhibition at a local museum, times have changed and so must the nature of this assignment. The new assignment challenges you to curate an imaginary art exhibition using what you have learned in the course and by selecting artworks from the world’s online museum collections. This exhibition will be a group show arranged around a theme, or moment in history, and/or a group of like minded artists. 

The exhibition should have a theme (and a really good title). To determine a theme consider all the elements and principles we have covered in the course. A close consideration of all the modes of analysis (formal, stylistic, iconographic, etc) will also be crucial. It would be a solid first step, to look at various museum sites and read the descriptions of current and past exhibitions. This will give you an idea how a curator works to create a show of artworks from different artists organized around a theme or set of themes. 

The final form of the exhibition will be a written statement about the exhibition overall and a series of descriptions one for each piece in the exhibition (at least five pieces need to be included). The statement should explain the show’s general aims. What unifies the artists and/or artworks in the show? What are the common themes, concepts, materials, forms, historical settings, or biographical details that unify them? (These are examples to chose from, your exhibition statement does not have to use all these terms to compare the artists.) Once you have your overall statement for the exhibition, you will take the reader on a tour of the exhibition by writing about each work of art featured.

Tips for a holistic final project:

For research: Pick several museums that show the kind of work that you are interested in and look at there entries for current and past exhibitions to try to see how they discuss the work and how they put the work together! 

Create a concept for the exhibition by considering the work you like and how the individual pieces might relate to one another and form a cohesive group. 

• Once you have picked some works, write down your thoughts on the work of art before consulting the internet. I am not interested in you having the textbook answers in this project, I am interested in your original thoughts on the work, put down in a way that shows you can use the terminology and concepts you have learned during the course effectively.  
• DO NOT attempt to compose the whole document in the Discussion Forum posting window, make sure to type it out in a word processing App and then copy it into the forum post. This might take some reformatting, but at least you won’t have major sadness if your web-browser crashes.
• Part 1:
• The first stage of the project will be the development of the overall statement for the exhibition. This will serve as the introduction to the reader of the ideas behind the exhibition. 

FOR EXAMPLE: Maybe you have come up with a show… about feminist artists working in Mexico City in the 1970s. Well, tell us about that moment in time, what was the political climate in Mexico in the 1970s, who are these artists, what do they have in common, how do they work differently, etc. We want the big picture.

The format of your discussion forum entry for Part 1 should look like this:

Exhibition statement (500-1000 words) 

The Exhibition statement should capture the concept of the exhibition and explain why it is important and who you think would most enjoy it. It should set the stage for the reader. Try to answer the following questions in your Exhibition Statement. 

Where is this exhibition on display? Why this venue? What is this exhibition about? Who is in this exhibition? Why are these artist’s work shown together? Why is this exhibition important?