ARTH 390 Art and the Museum

• Wednesdays, 11:45 am-2:30 pm
• Instructor: Dr. John Di Stefano

The course examines the development, roles, and significance of the art museum in contemporary society, and how it shapes our public culture. In recent decades, art museums around the world have been reinventing themselves within quickly changing cultural, social and economic contexts. We will identify various contexts that shape the art museum’s relationship with artists, audiences, institutions, and its communities, and explore various strategies art museums have developed to respond to the changes posed by internal and external forces. Using writings and exemplars by historians, theorists, curators and artists, this course will examine key aspects of the art museum from various viewpoints. We will address the changing roles and responsibilities of art museums as knowledge-based social institutions, by looking at trends in museological thinking and practice including: the tradition of artists’ institutional critique; the decolonization of the museum, and new forms of curating.