Art History

The class aims for the following learning outcomes: 1) To acquire a comprehensive knowledge and understanding, through close study of primary texts, direct exposure to art exhibitions available in Rome, and slide presentations, of the breadth and historical significance of exhibitions that have shaped art history since 1800. 2) To understand the contemporary relevance of art exhibitions as a historical phenomenon by incorporating recent scholarship with post-colonial, global perspectives; 3) To comprehend what is involved in undertaking the study of visual and textual documents, and, more specifically, to learn how to use, read in a critical fashion, and properly cite photographic documentations, films, architectural models, literary sources, ephemera, and other archival materials needed to document the immersive and multisensory experience of an art exhibition; 4) To acquire training and practice in thinking and speaking authoritatively, critically, and with originality, about a body of material that was largely overlooked in the past but has gained prominence in the last thirty years: the exhibition as a medium and an apparatus rather than as a container of objects; exhibition history as an art historical method.