Manchester Museum's Hermit-in-Residence

The artist Ansuman Biswas is going to be spending 40 days and nights in the tower of Manchester Museum, communicating to the public via the internet and screens in the museum. According to the Guardian (read the article here) Biswas is going to be selecting objects from the collection and... doing things with them. If it goes wrong they can always use it as a way to test another human remains display strategy. It reminds me of Vito Acconci's Seedbed performance of 1971, the less said about which the better. Look it up if you're not easily distressed, don't tell me I didn't warn you. 

bodyspacemotionthings

I was really interested to read about Tate Modern's recent recreation of the Robert Morris installation bodyspacemotionthings of 1971. It's been widely reported that the first incarnation was closed early after damage to the piece by a public without the socio-behavioral framework for participatory encounters with art, as if the idea of damage was not a legitimate form of engagement. Post-Relational Aesthetics it seems as though we, as a trained public, might have a clearer idea of what is required of us in this context, but does this interactive familiarity serve as a limiting device for our actions? Well, Micheal Fried would say it was all just theatricality anyway.

For a link to a video of this work, click here.

Sticking with Tate Modern, Waldemar Januszczak had some interesting things to say about their relationship with UBS, although his argument that corporate sponsorship was particularly inappropriate in light of a re-hang focussing on Arte Povera seemed a bit clunky; is it perhaps more incongruous than dangerous? It's certainly not a new development. Particularly interesting in relation to Dominique's excellent paper at the MA symposium. Have a look at the article here.

Learn transfer-printing with Artist Hondartza Fraga...plus, hear the artists speak!

This Saturday 23 May 2009, the on campus Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery welcomes Hondartza Fraga, artist in our current show, 'The Object of Photography.' She'll be showing visitors how to transfer-print from photocopied images, turned these images into badges and cards. There will be two sessions, one from 11-1 and then another from 2-4pm.

The workshop is FREE, but booking is essential - only 10 places in each session! Call 0113 343 2778 to book.

Image: Deciduous, by Hondartza Fraga, 2009, hand-printed glass slides © The Artist

In other news, interviews with all the artists in the show are now available on our website. Listen to Joe Mawson, Andrew Warstat, Hondartza Fraga and Ignaz Cassar discuss their views on photography, their art practice and their influences, at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/gallery/exhibitions.htm.

MA Student Symposium

Our MA Student Symposium, held over three days, (May 11th - 13th) was a great success, the attendance was very high, (as usual), and with a cohort of over 50 PG students this year, from across all the postgraduate programmes in the School, as well as lecturers and other interested parties, the seminar room was pretty packed out. The symposium is an annual event, and allows the PG students to tell us all what they have been working on for their dissertation projects and is also an opportunity for feedback and encouragment....each day is chaired by one of our Professors; Professor Griselda Pollock chaired our first day: Professor Roger Palmer our second, and Professor Vanalyne Green our final day....All of the papers were of a very high standard, (as usual), and the papers from the MA Art Gallery and Museums Studies Students clearly illustrated the range of work being undertaken and how the field of museum and gallery studies is going to be further enhanced by some new young (and not so young) scholars!

Here's a flavour of the students' MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies papers.....

Beth Taylor, 'Prisons and Museums, Museums as Prisons: the panotican model in historical museum spaces'.
Philip Manley, 'Curating Narratives in an art gallery context: a study of three Gerhard Richter exhibitions'.
Tara Jardine, 'Object Transformation', a case stuy of the Time Stacks at the Imperial War Museum North'.
Miriam Loxham, 'Remembering the Holocaust in Britain: cultural memory and the Imperial War Museum's Holocaust Exhibition'.
Claire Hart, 'Voices from the Nazi Party Rally Grounds Information Centre, Nuremburg'.
Rebecca Wade, 'The Objects, Publics and Economic Logic of the Leeds Public Exhibition of Works of Art, Science, Natural History and Manufacturing Skill, 1839'.
Chan Chun Wa, 'From Absence to Presence: the representation of power in Meiji Imperial Museums'.
Eleanor Brooke, 'Chesters 'museum of a museum': representations of a 19th century collection for a 21st century audience'.
Georgina Gates, 'Displaying Contemporary Art in the Domestic Space: the Terrace Gallery and Watercolour Rooms at Harewood House'.
Ebony Andrews, 'The biographical afterlife of the Leeds Tiger, 1860-2009'.
Claire Murphy, 'Methods of Displaying Human Remains in English Museums'.
Joannie Cote Bouchard, 'History in the Leeds City Museum and the definition of Collective Identity'.
Helen Deevy, 'Artist-led Exhibition Spaces and Current Working Models of Urban Regeneration: Project Space Leeds'.
Kim Klug, 'Using Culture to Create Memory: MoMA's Alzheimer's Project'.
Shona Raffle, Belows Stairs: a nostalgic phemomenon?'
Dominique Gruhl-Begin, 'Exploring the motivations behind Corporate funding of the Arts: a comparative study between Nestle and Unilever'.
Allison Tara Sundaram, 'Digital Media and Youth Outreach: new pathways for museum learning?'
Miriam Dumbleton, 'Helen Chadwick's Archive: Ergo Geometria Sum and Feminism'.
Karen Mee, 'The formation and early history of Cawthorne Museum'.

Well done to all of the students! All of the papers were very well recieved, and there was a real critical buzz at the Symposium....

Mark

Archive Assistant Vacancy

This job has just popped up on the Leeds City Council website, someone might be interested? Here's the blurb:

We are looking for an archive assistant to help with listing and re-packaging the records of the Earls of Harewood. This is an exceptional family and estate collection of international significance, with contents ranging from the slave trade to the British Raj, letters from Florence Nightingale, papers concerning Chartist disturbances and Poor Law riots, as well as drawings and documents illustrating the building of Harewood House, and the management of the Harewood family estates.

You will have excellent IT and keyboard skills, and be able to work methodically and accurately. You should have a good general education, (4 GCSE passes Grade C above or equivalent including English Language and Mathematics) and an interest in history.

This post is funded through an award from the National Cataloguing Grants Scheme.

For an informal discussion, contact the Project Archivist Lisa Greenhalgh on 0113 289 8285.

Download an application form and job description from http://www.wyjs.org.uk or call 0113 253 0241.

The closing date for applications is Friday 15th May 2009.
Interviews will be held on Thursday 28th May 2009.

Museology Seminar Series

Hi All,
A big thank you to Dr Anna Catalani (Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change, Leeds Metropolitan University) and Dr Kostas Arvanitis (Centre for Museology, University of Manchester) for presenting such interesting papers at our Leeds University 'Museology Seminar Series' this semester. Anna's paper, 'Displaying traditional Yoruba Religious objects in British museums', delivered on 12th march 2009, offered facinating insights into her research into attitudes and responses of African communities in the UK to their heritage as is it displayed in British museums. And Kostas' paper, 'Domestic Gods?' or a museology of the invisible': public archaeological sites in private modern homes', (30th April 2009), drew on his ongoing research into the relationships between 'professional' archaeology and the practice of everday life in Greece (thru Michel de Certeau...obviously!)
Both papers were excellent examples of current research trends in museum and gallery (and archaeology) studies, and provided much discussion. We very much appreciated Anna and Kostas taking time to come to speak to students and staff at Leeds.

The Museology Seminar Series will continue in the new semester...we'll keep you posted.
Mark

Critical History in the Museum

Hi All,
there's been a very interesting development in the 'What should we be teaching in Museum and Gallery Studies' debate....(i.e. the relevance of all that critical theory you are introduced to in our BA and MA programmes).....well it seems that Nietzche's (& Foucault's, & Lyotard's, & Barthes' and etc etc) 'critical history' does have a role to play in the museum...as the (very timely) 'Opinion' (published in Museum Practice (no less!), Spring 2009 has clearly demonstrated.....(I have a scanned copy of it, just email me and I'll 'post' it onto you).
Daniele Wagner, of the Musee d'Histoire de la Ville Luxembourg, writer of the short piece, suggests that 'historical subjects are often reduced to cliches in museums, contradicting the complexity of the past'. And she draws on Lyotard to suggest that museums should 'seek ways to stimulate critical debate about the past'.
This is really refreshing, don't you think?...At last, museum practice is seeing the relevance of a critical philosophy of history, and for you as potential museum professionals, doing all that hard thinking will not be wasted!
Of course, it is a difficult task to make such a project happen in the museum as we know, given the customary constraints. But given the significance of a 'critical history' in our understanding of the past, especially in times such as ours where there seems to be, to quote Nietzche, an 'excess of history', and given that the museum is the 'public face' of history, it seems to me that the museum is precisely the location for such criticality....
Mark