Contemporary Art and Design Practice‒Onsite 

The course aims to provide an overview of contemporary art and design in Rome through direct onsite experience in studios, galleries, and institutions, as well as dialogs with collectors, curators, critics, museum directors, and international academies. Students will interact with, explore, and analyze the practices of active practitioners within the Roman milieu. Students will con- sider their own practice as it is situated in the city and as it relates to art and design stakeholders at large. The spheres of public and private art and design spaces will be analyzed in terms of their cultural, social, and political functions to aid students in integrating this knowledge into positioning their personal creative output. The course invites students to consider through real world experience how various institutions and actors play different roles in influencing the context of art and design production, both locally and on the global scale.

SUMMARY OF COURSE CONTENT

The course wishes to act as an overview on the contemporary art system, using Rome as a live board. The Eternal City’s contemporary art world will be analyzed and directly experienced on site.

Classes will be developed as a constant workshop which aims to disclose all the passages and active processes intrinsic to the contemporary art system: from the genesis and the realization of an artwork (art academies, artists’ studios), to its promotion and display in cultural forums (Museums, Art Foundations, non-profit art spaces), or in commercial sites (commercial gallery), while also considering other research-based institutions engaged in the art system (Foreign Art Academies). During the course the students will be meeting all the main players of the art system: artists, Museum directors, institutional and independent curators, art writers, editors, producers, publishers, educators, gallerists, dealers, auctioneers, collectors, patrons, press officers, social media managers, among others.

Classes will explore the space in which works are conceived and produced, visiting a number of Artists’ Studios in town. Access to these private spaces will disclose different methods of working and unveil artists’ thought processes, source materials and management skills. Subsequently we will define the role and the responsibility of the museum and it collection, overviewing current debates around the contemporary position of the museum as an institution and its cultural, social, and political functions. We will explore the museum’s stance in the preservation, display, documentation, education of art and its responsibility in the process of playing an active part in the creation of a future art history. Contemporary museums in Rome will be used as examples of current debates in Museum Studies, addressing the institution intended as a “temple” and as a “forum”.

We will then investigate the role of the commercial gallery in its different declinations: as a space for the promotion, visibility, support of the artist. The market aspect of the gallery will be analyzed alongside the figure of the collector and of the patron. Visits to various commercial galleries in Rome will focus on the diverse steps it takes to build a gallery and affirm its position and its artists. The exhibitions at the galleries will be used as case studies to explore themes and ideas present in contemporary art discourses and practices today.

Art Foundations as private institutions, initiated by patrons, active in the promotion of contemporary art will also be visited, along with Foreign Art Academies, whose fellowship programs are very important in supporting moments of study and research for artists and scholars. Lastly we will visit non-profit artist or curator run spaces, vital for the promotion of emerging artists and less renowned practices that often have more difficulty in entering the Italian institutional art scene. We will investigate how these independent exhibition spaces are different from museums, their engagement with the city’s contemporary art scene, the building of their audience, and their responsibility within the cultural system.

Each session consists of an in-class or on-site lecture, followed by a site visit. The aim is to build up an in-depth point of view on the visual arts system in Rome.

Site visits and lectures are supplemented by readings from art magazines, exhibition catalogues, anthologies and on-line journals.

Required course materials/study visits and expected expenditure for the students

Site visits are part of the course. There might be occasions in which students will need to take care of their entrance tickets to museums.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Through museum site visits, studio visits to local and international artists; lectures and discussions with dealers, collectors, curators, critics, museum directors, foreign academies, students will

-       Become familiar with contemporary art through a participatory experience;

-       Recognize the different aspects of the art system;

Relate with the multiple institutions and protagonists of the art system;

-       Explore current cultural theory through art practices an museum shows, focusing on different aspects of the current cultural discourse.

-       Investigate frameworks and practices in the field of contemporary art and how these are developing and responding to the present world:

-       Critically think through the multiplicities of the worlds they inhabit, thanks to the complex cultural policies, market driven economic politics represented by the art system;

-       Conceive the art world as an example of art social and cultural constructing structure;

-       Acquire the ability to enquire into the power of the art as language and as experience;

-       Develop their own way of approaching the art system as a professional opportunity;

-       Experience Rome’s present and contemporary aspects.

SCHEDULE

Please note that the syllabus and the schedule are subject to unforeseen changes.

Class 1              Introduction: An introduction to Contemporary Rome from the 1960s until today. The spaces of contemporary art: Museums / Foundations / Galleries / Artist Run Spaces / Studios / Foreign Academies in Rome / Fairs

Class 2                  Visit: Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna -  www.gnam.beniculturali.it

Lecture:  What is a museum: a brief history of the birth of the museum. Surveying the major movements of Italian 20^th century art

Class 3         Visit: MAXXI Museum of XXI Century Art - www.fondazionemaxxi.it

Lecture: The museum of contemporary art: white cube or signature architecture.
The role of museums: the museum as a “temple” (collection, archive, conservation), and the museum as a “forum (display, education, special events and programs)
Museum facilities:  bookstore, restaurant, gift shop; (defining) the Museum staff: director, curator, public, work of art.

Class 4              Visit: MACRO - Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma  - www.museomacro.org

Lecture: What is an exhibition: a brief history of exhibitions.

The role of the curator.

Catalogues and exhibition documentation, labels, wall texts, guided tours.

Collateral events: performances, workshops, reading groups, lectures.

Exhibition analysis:  selection of works, installation methods, documentation, wall texts and labels, lighting.

Class 5         Visit: Commercial galleries:

ADA
T293
Sant’Andrea de Scaphis
Lorcan O’Neil

Ermes Ermes
Operativa

Colli

Eugenia Delfini
Tim Van Laere Gallery

Lecture: The commercial gallery: definition and history.
Relationship between the artist and the dealer.

Relationship between the dealer and the collector.

Fairs.

Class 6              Visit: Fondazione Volume and Fondazione Giuliani

Lecture: Art Foundations: definition and history.
Programs: direction, exhibitions, workshops, lectures.

Development of an audience.

Communication and promotion.
Financial support and fundraising strategies

Class 7                     Visit: Artists’ Studios
                           Pastificio Cerere
                           Ombrelloni

Lecture: The studio as a space of research and production but also a place in which artists organize a multiplicity of operations and interactions.

Class 8           Visit: Artists’ Studios

                        Post Ex

Lecture: The studio as a space of research and production but also a place in which artists organize a multiplicity of operations and interactions.

Class 9          Visit: Curators’ Run Non-profit Space 

IUNO

Lecture: Non-profit Space: definition and history.
Programs: direction, exhibitions, workshops, lectures.

Development of an audience.

Communication and promotion.

Financial support and fundraising strategies.

Class 10       Visit 1: CURA magazine and Basement Roma

 
Lecture: Specialized art magazine: aims and direction.
Basement Roma is a non-profit organization and a self-sustained exhibition space run by CURA.
Development of the program.

Development of an audience.

Communication and promotion.

Relationships to other spaces.

Financial support and fundraising strategies.

Visit 2: IUNO and Divario – Non-profit art spaces


Lecture: Non-profit Space: definition and history.
Programs: direction, exhibitions, workshops, lectures.

Development of an audience.

Communication and promotion.
Financial support and fundraising strategies.

Class 11          Visit: Foreign Cultural Academies in Rome
American Academy in Rome
Academia de Espana


Lecture: Foreign Cultural Academies: overseas centers for independent   studies and advanced research in the visual and fine arts and humanities.
Programs, direction and relationship with the city.

Class 12            Visit: Foreign Cultural Academies in Rome
  Villa Medici
   Istituto Svizzero

                         Lecture: Foreign Cultural Academies: overseas centers for independent       studies and advanced research in the visual and fine arts and humanities.
Programs, direction and relationship with the city.

Class 13            Visit: The collection of Flaminia Cerasi
Meeting with Art Basel VIP Manager Damiana Leoni

Lecture: How to build and manage a private collection.

The role of the collector.

Investing in art.

Class 14            In class lectures by selected independent curators, editors, producers, press officers, social media managers

OVERVIEW OF KEY BIBLIOGRAPHIC WORKS FOR THE COURSE