HNAR-317: Writing As Curatorial Practice

Artists and designers often curate an exhibition as a way of gathering and interpreting other's ideas and artworks around their own interests. Writing is the key to setting an exhibition in motion and in the act of writing, we grasp complex thoughts and explore hidden meanings. Curators-from research and proposals to packaging, exhibition texts, and catalogs-are writers. Through visits to alternative exhibition spaces, galleries, and studios with owners, publishers, curators, and artists, we will expand the notion of curated sites. In this class we develop writing as a tandem practice to your studio work. Students write reviews, curatorial statements, and narratives about work they experience, as well as study different styles of writing about art and cultural practice. Students create individual exhibition proposals as a means of engaging with newly discovered material and to cultivate their own artists voice. This three-hour seminar includes weekly readings, intensive writing, and field trips. All disciplines are encouraged to take this writing focused course (advertising, design, fine art, film, photography, illustration).