ARTH 546: Seminar in Contemporary Art
Curatorial Methods
with Terri Weissman
Fall 2016

This course is a graduate seminar and practicum in curatorial methods. Co-taught by Terri Weissman (art history) and Amy L. Powell (Krannert Art Museum), the course will investigate the discursive models, artistic practices, and political underpinnings of what Irit Rogoff has called “the expanding field” of curatorial work, which combines training in art history with attention to archives, education programs, and various broad forms of knowledge production. Taking as case study the exhibition Northern Triangle by Borderland Collective, a social art project based in San Antonio concerned with geographic and sociocultural borders, we will visit campus collections, discuss readings, and together prepare an exhibition around themes of “land grant” at Krannert Art Museum (KAM). The exhibition will open January 26, 2017.

Northern Triangle, on view at KAM during the seminar, uses artworks, documents, and archives to interrogate the long and fraught history of U.S. involvement in Central America. The course’s exhibition Land Grant will likewise use campus collections to mark the year 2017 as the sesquicentennial of the University of Illinois. Drawing on Borderland Collective’s emphasis on borderlands, the ability of images to legitimize and resist power, and social engagement, students will research topics that may include: the founding and history of the University of Illinois, the history and future of public higher education, land use and land rights, issues of indigeneity, and the university’s former mascot Chief Illiniwek, for whom the year 2017 marks the tenth anniversary of retirement. 

Land Grant exhibition dates January 27 - July 8, 2017
Exhibition curators: Alyssa Bralower, Yue Dai, Evin Dubois, Maria Garth, Michael Hurley, Cory Imig, Lilah Leopold, Jenny Peruski, Luis Gonzalo Pinilla, and Allison Rowe