As a Curator
For your final project, you will pretend to be a curator, and your job is to program an evening of art and performance based on what weve studied in this class. Dont worry, you wont be actually staging this evening in realitythis is an imaginary event that you will simply describe on paper.
The Assignment: Please design an evening of performances and visual art that will somehow encapsulate a theme (or themes) that have been raised by this class. Imagine this event as a guided group experience: your audience will walk in the door, and you will take them on a tour of artworks/performance pieces you have selected to explore ideas raised in this class.
Your program must include at least five real existing artworks, one from each of the following very general genres: music, performance art, earthworks, poetry, dance. Also, your program must include at least one new artwork you make up yourself, which can be in any genre you like, including genres we didnt cover in class. Note: these genres are vague and open to interpretation. Please communicate with your TA if you want to make sure a given artwork is appropriate.
What you will actually turn in will be a programa document that audience members attending your fictional evening would read in order to learn about your concept, the reasons for the choices you made, and of course information about and historical contextualization of the works/artists youve chosen to feature.
Over the semester we have talked a lot about museums, exhibits, curation, the art world, and various political issues concerning these things. I suggest you revisit your notes from our classes on politics and curation, in particular, and refresh your memory on some of these topics. Think about: what is an exhibit? What are some different ways people have approached programming exhibits? What would you want to use an exhibit to accomplish?
Details: Your evening should have a strong concept or themewhat is your evening of art about? What characteristics, ideas, messages, or features do all your selected art works share? These shared features can be philosophical or topical (e.g. perhaps you program an evening of art that is all about the experience of immigrants, or that is all about war, or all about Disney princesses, I dont know) or they can be aesthetic (an evening of artworks that are all in one way or another improvisatory or that all engage in some way with abstraction). Your theme could have to do with the artists themselvesfor example, you could program an entire exhibit only of works by women or people of color or people under the age of 40, etc. Your theme could even be addressing a question raised in this class: Like what is art? or what is beauty? or boredom. You can pick any concept(s) you want. What idea(s) have interested you most, as youve learned about art in this class? Is there an artistic style or genre that you want to explore more deeply? Is there an argument about art you want to make, now that youve experienced this class? You can interpret this assignment in any number of ways and I encourage you to be as creative as you like with it.
Your program will feature real artworks/performancesyou will select actual works that have actually been made by artists in real life. For example, you might pick Yoko Onos Cut Piece or Leonardo Da Vincis painting The Mona Lisa. So, this project entails a bit of research as well as imaginative workwhat cool artists are out there, making stuff you find interesting, stuff that aligns with the concept youre trying to explore in a multimedia art exhibit? Since this is all imaginary, you need not be constrained by the realities of time and space. In real life it would be extremely difficult to get, say, Yoko Ono, Kendrick Lamar, and Martha Graham (who is dead) to come perform in an exhibition together; but since your program is imaginary, you can make that happen.
So, your program should include primarily real, existing artworks; HOWEVER, it should also include at least one (although feel free to create more than one!) artwork/performance that you make up yourself, and describe.
Once you have identified the real and imagined works you want to exhibit, youll create the actual program for your evening, which means: describing each thing youve chosen (Perception), explaining the personal reasons for your choice (Response), and explaining and contextualizing each work in the context of your program as a whole (Interpretation). For example, if you choose Cut Piece by Yoko Ono, the program note on this piece would: give the concrete info about the piece (what is it, what happens during it, what year it premiered, who Ono is); give some of your personal reasons for finding the piece interesting and for choosing it for your program; and relate the piece to the theme of your program.
This is a very imaginative project. Think about: what would you want an audience to get out of your evening? Do you want to inspire them? Confuse them? Anger them? Ask them to think differently or critically about an issue? Do you want to make them laugh? Confront them with something? Do you want to include them in the exhibit or do you want them to simply observe? What would your ideal audience experience be? This is stuff real curators think about all the timehow and why to engage an audience with a given set of works. Also think about: what would you like your program to look like? It can just be a plain old Word document, but it could also be imaginatively designed and illustrated in some way. Stretch your creative muscles, if you feel compelled to do so!
The Rules:
you can pick as many works or performances as you like, but your program must include a minimum of SIX (one work of music; one work of earthworks/landscape art; one work of performance art; one work of poetry; one work of dance) and the new work you createwhich can be in any genre, even genres we havent covered in class. You can include as many artworks (both pre-existing and newly-created) as you like, so long as there are at least six. Any additional art you include can be from any genre you want, including genres we didnt cover in class.
You are welcome to choose works we have talked about in class, but I also encourage you to choose some other works as well, works you find out about yourself.
Also, you may be creative in interpreting these required genres. What counts as performance art? What counts as music? Explaining your choices in these areas will mean establishing what you think the parameters of these genres are/should be.
The program you turn in needs to contain all of the following, in some way:
Description of the space your evening takes place inwhat is the flow of events, what does the space look like, where do performances happen, etc. How should the audience move through your exhibit?
Actual correct information about, and clear descriptions of, the existing artworks youve chosen as well as the one(s) you have made up yourself
Discussion of your evenings big concept or theme, with attention paid to how your concept/theme relates to each artwork youve chosen as well as to this classbasically, this can be a personal narrative explaining your choices and how your imaginary program grew out of your experience of this class in some way
You might look at some actual exhibition programs to get ideas about formatting and structure. For example, what does the FACs season program look like? Other programs youve received, at concerts or exhibits? You are free to format your program however you want, so long as we can understand it.
You can simply turn in a Word document with your program written in it; but if you have the inclination and know-how, please feel free to design it more creatively, with a cool layout, images, colors, etc. If you dont want to use a computer, you can even make something by hand, and turn that in!
In terms of length, you should write at least two full paragraphs explaining your theme or concept and providing a general overview of the exhibit/space/etc., and in addition, at least one full paragraph for each work you have chosen. As always, use 12 pt. font and double space your paper.
