MRes Art: Exhibition Studies

Course detail

MRes Art allows you to address a specialist area of fine art research and to explore the relationships between your chosen specialism and the broader fine art community in the context of our Fine Art Programme.

Synergies in our Fine Art Programme - incorporating MA Fine Art, MA Art and Science, MA Photography, MRes Art: Exhibition Studies, MRes Art: Moving Image, and MRes Art: Theory and Philosophy - create a dynamic context for exploring practices and issues within contemporary culture.

In its extended full-time mode the course gives you the flexibility to access London's richly varied opportunities for work and study while maximising your personal and professional development.

MRes Art prepares you to work particularly in the academic and research contexts of professional environments, to undertake PhD study, or pursue independent research. The course benefits from links with relevant professional and academic organisations in London and internationally and from the varied expertise of its research staff.

The three pathways provide a focus for your study while also enabling you to explore shared ground and questions of disciplinary territories and boundaries.

MRes Art: Exhibition Studies considers exhibitions and curating inside and outside the museum and gallery, in order to analyse their effects on contemporary art practice, and construct an alternative, critical art history. Debate follows the broad lines of art history's historiography and methodology with the goal to deepen your understanding of important questions of method in the field

MRes Art: Exhibition Studies is delivered in conjunction with Afterall, the art research and publishing organisation based at Central Saint Martins. It provides for the first time an opportunity to examine the history of contemporary exhibition practice through the detailed study and analysis of case studies and practical, theoretical, cultural or socio-political developments. This specific approach to the study of curatorial practice is unique. Art history courses don't systematically tackle the exhibition form, which is the first point of access to art by an audience and therefore shapes the way art is understood, while curatorial courses tend to have a vocational character and don't promote a thorough analysis of the history of the mechanisms and implications of display strategies.

MRes Art: Exhibition Studies supports and is shaped by:

• Development of scholarship and research in the history of contemporary art through the history and theory of exhibitions
• Collaborative work with publishing projects led by Afterall. A long-term current project is ‘Exhibition Histories’, currently produced in partnership with the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, with the support of MUDAM, Luxembourg, and Arts Council England. It represents the first comprehensive attempt at writing a history of contemporary exhibition practice
• Potential student participation in such projects leading to specific public outputs such as publications, conferences and symposia
• Student/staff access to the resources and knowledge already amassed by Afterall, as well as to its network of contributors and collaborating institutions, including their staff and archives.

Course rationale

From the mid nineteenth century onwards, and more notably since 1945, exhibitions have played a key role in defining art's development or opening up new artistic positions. By documenting and analysing institutional exhibitions, spectacular public events, artistic manifestoes and counterpublic gatherings amongst other forms, it is possible to write new art narratives that involve artistic, curatorial and public moments of exchange. We have chosen 1955, the date of the first Documenta in Kassel, as the starting date for the course as marking a moment when the avant-garde moved fully into the public domain and integrated into spectacular culture. Since then, it is largely exhibitions through which the possibilities and meaning of modern and contemporary art have been disclosed and the curatorial has assumed a new significance. MRes Art: Exhibition Studies will focus on these public artistic phenomena in all their forms as a way to write the history of the last half-century of art.

The term 'exhibition' covers a variety of forms of public presentation of art, from the physical exhibition and catalogue to websites and independent publications. In general, such exhibitions are understood as collective enterprises involving more than one artist or curator.

One of the key focuses of the course will be the history of the white cube, as an exhibition space that became the default curatorial style. The consequences for artworks of this supposedly "neutral" location have been hugely influential, but there have always been many alternative proposals that mediate a viewer's relationship to the art differently. Both large and small-scale exhibitions have offered such alternatives, while the modernist paradigm still largely survives in museums. Recent decades have also been characterised by an expansion of the geographies of contemporary art that call out for more analysis and thoughtful documentation of the biennales, triennIales and mega-shows that have proliferated in recent times. The development of installation art, event sculpture, expanded cinema and the blurring of art and curatorial roles will all be potential subjects for study.

The professional curator and the globetrotting artist, together with the 'cultural producer', the dealer and the corporate patron/collector, are the archetypal positions through which the art world operates. Their interrelationships will be examined in the course, drawing attention to global relations and hierarchies of power. The connections to 'neo-liberal' economics, the demands of global markets and audiences, the emergence of media and forms that communicate across cultural difference (or don't) will be the subject of studies based on specific and exemplary exhibitions.

MRes Art: Exhibition Studies is unique in its relationship with Afterall, the international art research and publishing organisation based in London, at CSM. MRes Art: Exhibition Studies is spearheaded by the academic expertise within the Afterall team and benefits from the professional networking opportunities of publishing projects. Afterall publications include the Afterall journal and website, and the 'Exhibition Histories' series, all of which provide relevant discursive materials for study. There will also be opportunities for student involvement in professional practice and relevant contacts for individual research development will be provided.

Course dates

Autumn term
Monday 24 September 2018 – Friday 7 December 2018
Spring term
Monday 7 January 2019 – Friday 15 March 2019
Summer term
Monday 15 April 2019 – Friday 21 June 2019

Course outline

MRes Art: Exhibition Studies considers recent and important debates about modern and contemporary art in the context of exhibitions and public presentations of art. It enables you to explore key concepts and critical theories in a variety of fields with a focus on significant exhibitions from 1955 to today.

The first year offers teaching in research skills while engaging you in the specialist subject of your pathway. At the same time you'll prepare for a personally directed programme of study - your research project. In the second year you'll pursue and realise your project. Your progress is supported through tutorials and critical discussions, and monitored through written assignments and presentations. Your realised project is the principal assessed work leading to the MRes qualification.

Unit One - Exhibition Histories: Contemporary Art and Curatorship in the Public Sphere

Unit One runs concurrently with Unit Two and introduces you to the subject of exhibition histories through a series of lectures looking at specific exhibitions (including those covered by Afterall's 'Exhibition Histories' series) in relation to key developments in the history of contemporary art since documenta 1 in 1955.

Exhibition types studied typically include some of the following: documentas, major international biennales or multisite exhibitions, major group shows of contemporary art organised by museums, manifesto-like exhibitions organised by art centres and kunsthalles, and artist-initiated exhibitions.

You'll develop your learning particularly through the study of the exhibition format, looking in detail at a past or current single exhibition or a cluster of exhibitions of your choice. By compiling and writing a dossier or micro-history of these you'll address their historical role or influence, the initial curatorial intent, the processes of artistic production, the mediation by the institution and the reception by the public. This builds knowledge of the exhibition experience in the round, helping you to make judgments about the effects and possibilities offered by the exhibition framework.

Key considerations are local versus global positions, curatorial and artistic intentions and results, the effect of the exhibition format on artworks and their reception, and the assessment of historical significance of exhibitions.

By the end of this unit you'll have experience of the initial processes, components and key issues in exhibition studies and its relation to contemporary art history.

Unit Two - Thinking as Practice (Research Methodologies One)

This unit, common to all courses within our Postgraduate Art Programme, helps you engage with the postgraduate and research community at CSM.

Unit Two introduces the fundamental research skills that enable you to make informed decisions about appropriate methods to use in your chosen area of study and your professional future. The unit examines specific research skills and different kinds of research. Skills and knowledge areas covered include interviewing, literature search and review, archival skills, software for use in research and e-resources, feasibility studies, data analysis, referencing, citation and bibliographic conventions, and ethics. Seminars and workshops emphasise participation and the building of core research skills through practical exercises and small group projects.

Lectures ask how arts research and discourse is developed, shared and understood. The focus is on methods of learning, thinking, evaluation and interpretation as both practice based and theoretical forms of enquiry. The diversity of research activity at CSM provides a broad range of models and examples, with particular attention given to the place of practice in research projects.

Unit Two is assessed by workshop assignments.

Unit Three - Critical Practices (Research Methodologies Two)

Building on the introduction to research provided by Unit Two, Unit Three - which is common to all three MRes Art pathways - increases your focus on in-depth understanding of research methods and how they're applied within the arts and humanities.

The unit aims to demonstrate the dynamic ways in which conceptual and theoretical frameworks can be developed through the application of research methodologies.

You're expected to relate your learning in this unit to preparation for your research project in the parallel part of Unit Four. Tutorial and workshop support helps you do this.

Unit Four - Independent Research Project (IRP)

Unit Four has two parts. Part One is undertaken in parallel with Unit Three in year one. Part Two is devoted to independent study and the development and completion of your research project in year two.

Part One

Part One focuses on the preparation of your research project proposal and the wider context in which exhibitions are produced. This involves directed reading or viewing of relevant theory and comparative approaches to exhibition studies in group tutorials in order to support the development of your research project. The process includes discussing texts on some of the following theoretical and political topics: theories of perception, aesthetics, architectural design, the history of art institutions, theories of artistic authorship, the history of the public, feminism, and theories of subjectivity.

Your research project proposal will be developed in the latter part of year one, in conjunction with your studies in Unit Three. In preparation for your research project you'll prepare a seminar presentation on an exhibition topic related to your proposed field of study. You'll also produce a literature review with an annotated bibliography or equivalent that supports your project proposal document. You'll explore issues of purpose, validity and feasibility in methodological and resource terms, negotiating external links, exchanges and access arrangements as required.

Your research project can focus on a single exhibition or group of related exhibitions that afford interesting comparisons, a complete institutional programme, or a broader subject-centred study. Further options can be discussed with tutors.

At the end of year one (weeks 28-30) your seminar paper and draft project proposal, including the literature review, are presented for interim (formative) assessment, and you receive written feedback confirming your plans and/or advising revisions.

Part Two

All projects, including a commitment to the forms of your submission and appropriate ongoing supervision/tutorial arrangements, are agreed at the outset of year two.

A symposium shared across the MRes pathways presents and discusses all project proposals. Two international seminars with Afterall's European links are scheduled, one in the autumn and one in the summer.

A student-directed group event involving invited professionals takes place early in the spring term (prior to the PhD applications point). This event builds your professional skills and provides a discussion forum challenging you to recognise and debate key questions arising from your research project work to date.

Throughout the second year you lead interim presentations about your research, in person and online, discussing progress, challenges and findings, and issues of form, audience and dissemination.

A third event at the end of year two presenting your project outcomes aims to make visible potential contributions to new research in the area of exhibition studies, and to generate publication or other professional opportunities.

At the end of Unit Four you're assessed through presentation of your realised research project in the agreed forms, the project proposal document, and a report describing and evaluating changes and progress. Your marks for Units Three and Four determine the classification of your MRes award.

MRes Art Programme Specification 2018/19 (PDF, 354KB)

Facilities

• Library

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• LVMH Lecture Theatre

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• Lethaby Gallery

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Staff

• Yaiza Hernández, Pathway Leader

  1 of

• Professor Charles Esche

  2 of

• Dr Lucy Steeds

  3 of

• Dr. María Íñigo Clavo, Visiting Fellow

  4 of

• Filipa Ramos, Associate Lecturer

  5 of

• Dr. Núria Querol, Associate Lecturer

  6 of

• David Morris, Associate Lecturer

  7 of

• Helena Vilalta, Associate Lecturer

  8 of

Other staff

Pathway Leader, Moving Image: Duncan White

Reader: Dr Joanne Morra