Visitor-Centered Exhibitions and Edu-Curation in Art Museums

299 Pages·2017·3.852 MB·English

by  Pat Villeneuve (editor), Ann Rowson Love (editor)

Visitor-Centered
Exhibitions and
Edu-Curation in
Art Museums

Visitor-Centered
Exhibitions and
Edu-Curation in Art
Museums
Edited by Pat Villeneuve
and Ann Rowson Love
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Villeneuve, Pat, 1955– editor. | Love, Ann Rowson, 1967– editor.
Title: Visitor-centered exhibitions and edu-curation in art museums / edited
by Pat Villeneuve and Ann Rowson Love.
Description: Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016052996 (print) | LCCN 2016053615 (ebook) | ISBN
9781442278981 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781442278998 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781442279001 (electronic)
Subjects: LCSH: Art museum visitors—Services for. | Art museums—Social aspects. |
Art museums—Educational aspects. | Art—Exhibition techniques.
Classification: LCC N435 .V57 2017 (print) | LCC N435 (ebook) | DDC 708—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016052996
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992.
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Foreword ix
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xvii
PART I: FOUNDATIONS: THE NEED FOR EDU-CURATION 1
1 F rom There to Here: In Support of Visitor-Centered
Exhibitions 3
Pat Villeneuve
2 Edu-Curation and the Edu-Curator 11
Ann Rowson Love and Pat Villeneuve
3 Rethinking Curator/Educator Training and Interaction
in the Co-Production of Art Museum Exhibitions 23
Brian Hogarth
PART II: READINESS: STRUCTURING YOUR APPROACH 45
4 From Consultation to Collaboration: Mechanisms
for Integrating Community Voices into Exhibition
Development 47
Judith Koke and Keri Ryan
5 Dynamic Moments: Testing High-Engagement Visitor
Experiences at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco 57
Maia Werner-Avidon, Deborah Clearwaters, and Dany Chan
v
vi Contents
6 Cu-Rate: Starting Curatorial Collaboration with Evaluation 71
Ann Rowson Love
7 Aligning Authority with Responsibility for Interpretation 87
Kathryn E. Blake, Jerry N. Smith, and Christian Adame
PART III: COLLABORATION IN ACTION 99
8 Beyond the Gate: Collaborating with Living Artists
to Bring Communities into the Museum and the Museum
into Communities 101
Maureen Thomas-Zaremba and Matthew McLendon
9 Collaboration within and outside the Museum:
Student-Written Labels in a Featured Exhibition
at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art 115
Rosie Riordan and Stephanie Fox Knappe
10 Supported Interpretation: Building a Visitor-Centered
Exhibition Model 127
Pat Villeneuve
11 The Absolute Resolution Photography Exhibition:
Facilitating Visitor Engagement with Supported
Interpretation (SI) 139
Alicia Viera, Carla Ellard, and Kathy Vargas
12 Visitor as Activist: A Mobile Social Justice Museum’s
Call for Critical Visitor Engagement 153
Monica O. Montgomery and Hannah Heller
PART IV: SEEING INSIDE THE PROCESS 167
13 Multivocal, Collaborative Practices in Community-Based
Art Museum Exhibitions 169
Marianna Pegno and Chelsea Farrar
14 For the Use of Art 183
Astrid Cats
15 P hilosophical Inquiry: A Tool for Decision Making
in Participatory Curation 193
Trish Scott, Ayisha de Lanerolle, Karen Eslea,
and individual participants
Contents vii
16 Teaching Visitor-Centered Exhibitions: A Duoethnography
of Two Team Members 205
Ann Rowson Love and John Jay Boda
PART V: SUSTAINING ENGAGED ORGANIZATIONAL
LEARNING 223
17 Complementary: Reflections on Curator–Educator
Teamwork at the Denver Art Museum 225
Stefania Van Dyke
18 Building a Workplace That Supports Educator–Curator
Collaboration 239
Jennifer Wild Czajkowski and Salvador Salort-Pons
19 Visitor-Centered Exhibition Design: Theory into Practice 251
Elizabeth K. Eder, Andrew Pekarik, and Zeynep Simavi
Index 265
About the Editors and Authors 271

Foreword
My museum career began with a rallying cry to rebel—unexpectedly in the
education department at the British Museum. I was extremely fortunate to
work with the director of education, John Reeve, an inspiring visionary from
whom I learned an immense amount about museum practice and leadership.
In my first meeting with John, I earnestly requested a textbook that would
introduce me to museum education theory.
To this day I remain surprised that the one book that John gave me was
a slim paperback, Ivan Illich’s 1971 classic, Deschooling Society. I was
shocked that a leader in one of the world’s most formal institutions of learn-
ing would give me a radical text arguing against institutionalized learning.
The book opened my eyes to the enormous potential of informal education
and self-directed learning. But what really impacted me—then as well as
today—was the idea of someone in a position of prestige and authority telling
an idealistic intern that to question power and challenge assumptions was the
path to a successful career in museums.
Around the same time, my museum world shifted again when I saw the
exhibition Visions of Japan, curated by Arata Isozaki, at the Victoria and
Albert Museum in London. The exhibition spanned just three rooms, and
each space not only focused on a specific theme but also engendered differ-
ent emotional and physical responses in the viewer. The first gallery serenely
presented a minimalist sampling of the traditional arts of Japan, including the
tea ceremony and tattoo arts. The second gallery assaulted the visitor with a
cacophony of contemporary Tokyo, complete with vending machines, herds
of Godzillas, and digital temple prayers. The small final room was unnerv-
ingly still, filled only with projected images of life dominated by technology.
I left the exhibition in a daze, moved by intense sensory impact, surprising
objects, and big ideas.
ix