“The Artist as Curator: Diego Velázquez, 1623-1660” reconsiders the career of Diego Velázquez at the court of Hapsburg king Philip IV as a major episode in the history of curatorial practice. By this it means to examine the ways Velázquez’s activities as a painter and his activities as curator of the Hapsburg art collection transformed each other. Velázquez’s paintings express ambitions and attitudes towards his predecessors that would motivate Velázquez’s reorganization of parts of the royal collection that included their works. In turn, the collection and display of paintings in royal exhibition sites would cultivate in Velázquez a knowledge of art and its history that would inform the paintings he produced at court. Velázquez was a singularly art-historical painter, many of whose works investigate the nature of art itself. This dissertation seeks to prove that these aspects of Velázquez’s work were cultivated in the early modern museum that was the Alcázar palace, where he was surrounded by a veritable history of art under the Hapsburgs. The dissertation has five chapters; each closely examines a significant project in Velázquez’s trajectory as artist-curator at the Hapsburg court. The first uses the first major installation that Velázquez would witness at the Hapsburg court to set up the problematic of the dissertation as a whole - namely, that meaning was made on the walls of galleries, and that if Velázquez was going to make his name at court, it would be by engaging the royal art collection as it appeared on gallery walls. The second investigates Velázquez’s first curatorial project, the redecoration of the Octagonal Room; it argued that Velázquez’s interest in art itself—an interest characteristic of his painting practice—found a new medium in his work as curator of this gallery. The third chapter reexamines The Rokeby Venus as a function of what Velázquez witnessed over the course of the assembly of the Vaults of Titian, where paintings of nudes were exhibited all together; it thus demonstrates the impact of the royal art collection and its display on his creative imagination as a painter. The fourth chapter considers the culminating curatorial project of Velázquez’s career—the redecoration of the Hall of Mirrors—in tandem with the suite of paintings he made for it—the painting cycle including Mercury and Argus, examining the ways that these two projects mutually informed one another. The final chapter proposes that Las Meninas again evidences Velázquez’s curatorial and painterly imaginations at work simultaneously; then it uses the painting as a point of entry into the reception of both of these aspects of Velázquez’s work at the Hapsburg court, arguing that to make art after Velázquez was to acknowledge both. All together, these chapters tell the story of Velázquez’s increasing engagement with the royal art collection, from the start of his career at the Hapsburg court through his legacy beyond it.

This study is based on the catalogue/checklist of Pierneef works in the Pretoria Art Museum collection. The artist’s life, social, political and artistic influences of the period, both local and international, may be deduced from works analysed and discussed. The Arts and Crafts movement was a powerful influence affecting ideas on national identity, folk art and the vernacular from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards. A world-wide romantic nationalism stimulated a search for identity and exploitation of the indigenous. It is argued that these trends may be identified in the artistic development of Pierneef who, through friends, wide reading and intensive study was alive to European developments but focused on the indigenous arts of Southern Africa. He was the first South African artist to recognize Busman art and that of the black peoples. They had a profound influence on his own development and the motifs of his art. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 1997. / Historical and Heritage Studies / unrestricted

This dissertation grapples with the making of identity in contemporary Tshwane, South Africa. Through this discourse, a number of issues, informants & responses are identified & developed as means of extracting identity from a cosmopolitan society. This extrapolation is undertaken as a means of reinvigorating the chosen study area as active public space, playing a role in informing both public & cultural discourse. At this dissertation's conclusion, a unique architectural response will be presented, dealing with issues such as identity, memory, globalisation, & context. In grappling with these issues, this dissertation will add to a contextual architectural discourse concerning the public realm, & cultural interactions in South Africa. / Die skripsie probeer die kwessie rondom die skepping van identiteit in kontemporêre Tshwane, Suid Afrika, behandel. Deur die ondersoek van die bogenoemde kwessie, word veeltallige probleme, insigte en reaksies geidentifiseer en ontwikkel,om deur sulke wyse identiteit vanuit die kosmopolitaanse gemeenskap te identifiseer. Deur wyse van hierdie ekstrapolasie word die heraktivering van die verkose studie area as n aktiewe publieke ruimte ondersoek, asook die rol wat dit speel daarin om publike en kulturele ruimtes te beinvloed deur verhandeling. Die slot van hierdie skripsie sal n unieke argitektoniese reaksie uitbeeld, wat die kwessies van identiteit, nagedagtenis, globalisering en kontektualiteit aanspreek. Deur die verhandeling van die bogenoemde kwessies, sal die skripsie n bydrae lewer tot die kontektuele argitektoniese gesprek rondom die publieke ryk en kulturele wisselwerking en interaksie in hedendaagse Suid Afrika. / Diese Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit der Identitäts ndung im zeitgenössischen Tshwane, Südafrika. Durch diesen Diskurs werden eine Reihe von emen, Informanten und Antworten identi ziert und als Mittel entwickelt, um Identität aus einer kosmopolitischen Gesellschaft herauszuholen. Diese Extrapolation dient der Wiederbelebung des gewählten Untersuchungsgebietes als aktiver ö¨entlicher Raum und spielt in dem Sinne eine Rolle den ö¨entlichen und kulturellen Diskurs zu informieren. Am Ende dieser Dissertation wird eine einzigartige architektonische Antwort präsentiert, die sich mit emen wie Identität, Gedächtnis, Globalisierung und Kontext befasst. Diese Dissertation wird zu einem kontextuellen architektonischen Diskurs über den ö¨entlichen Bereich und kulturelle Interaktionen in Südafrika beitragen. / Mini Dissertation MArch(Prof)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Architecture / MArch(Prof) / Unrestricted

In this thesis, work has been carried out in order to explore the role of materiality in works of conceptual art – and what possible influence the preservation of such objects might have for their meaning within the context of a modern art museum. The study is divided into three parts, where the initial one examines the concept of materiality, the second part maps the history and complexity of conservation, and the final part is based on three case studies of individual artworks. The research is carried out through a literature study within the fields of conservation and art history, as well as different kinds of institutionally produced reports along with exhibition descriptions and art reviews. Interviews have also been carried out with a curator and conservators from two museums of contemporary art, Moderna museet in Stockholm and Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-westfalen in Düsseldorff. One aspect of the study has been to, from a perspective of discourse theory, investigate whether any so-called antagonistic relationships could be identified within the practices of the art museum, between different professional attitudes towards the idea of preserving artworks where the materiality may or may not be of relevance for the conceptual integrity of the piece. No such antagonism has been observed, but rather a situation where the professional boundaries are blurred in relation to the individual object. In the theoretical forms of a communicative network, conservators, curators and the artist responsible for the piece engage in the custodial presentation of the artwork. In this work, traditional notions of preservation may give way to a process-oriented relationship with the object to enable a continuous relevance toward the public and as an active part of the contemporary art scene. Even if the context of the art museum establishes the physical limits of the conceptual art composition, the preservation of the artwork may be viewed as pragmatic in terms of its materiality – where a dialogue with the artist plays an important part in the management process. The role of materiality may thus be decisive for the realization of the conceptual idea within an artwork, but as long as the work may be considered as integral to a contemporary art scene the conservation of it may focus on other aspects than its specific physical elements. When, or if, the artwork evolves into a symbolic representation of for instance the artist’s production or an art historical era – when a contemporary significance is lost – the role of materiality may possibly change and require a different conservation-based perspective concurrent with traditional types of cultural artifacts. The identity of an artwork may be considered as continuously evolving and its meaning a matter of the time it exists in, where the materiality of the object communicates its relevance.

No description available.

In 1979, the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and the Standard Bank Investment Corporation came together to form the Standard Bank Foundation Collection of African Tribal Art, the first public collection of its kind in South Africa, which fundamentally re-shaped public and institutional perceptions of black art in the country. Its collection and display, at first in the Gertrude Posel Gallery and then in the Wits Art Museum, formed a canon of African art that represented the artistic identities of a larger continent as well as those of South Africa’s majority black population. Together these formed an explicit political statement. This dissertation traces the evolution of the Standard Bank Collection, examining key developments at critical moments in South Africa’s political history. Divided into two parts that juxtapose the apartheid and post-apartheid periods, the first section begins with the founding of the Standard Bank Collection and its inaugural exhibition, African Tribal Sculpture held in 1979. In Chapter One, a case study considers how Wits placed black South African objects in dialogue with the canonical sculpture from West and Central Africa. Wits thereby authenticated black South African objects as art, both in South Africa itself and within the field of African art history, an action that undermined the apartheid system. Chapter Two offers a second case study that takes on the racially charged climate of late apartheid, situating Wits’ collecting practices in relationship to the collections and exhibitions of other art museums in the country. Wits curators employed and politicized the labels traditional art and transitional art in their classifications of South African objects at a critical juncture in the nation’s political transformation. Part two looks at the post-apartheid period in a single case study. Chapter Three examines the politics present in exhibitions featuring African art in the new Wits Art Museum that addressed themes relevant to popular urban culture – including style, fashion, and adornment – viewed as central to the presentation of post-apartheid black identities. By examining the types of objects Wits collected and the kinds of exhibitions it mounted, this dissertation illuminates how the art museum’s cultural authority represented and grappled with the changing racial politics of the nation.

In seeking to create a richer learning environment in a junior high art classroom, the author develops a theory of presence. Closely connected to object-centered learning, a theory of presence in the art classroom places value on students being in the presence of, interacting with, and responding to artworks, artists, and other individuals and objects from the visual arts community. The author then describes how curricular plans are influenced by this theory of presence. Using an action research methodology, the author engages in the spiral process of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting on curriculum that explores the possibilities of connecting students with objects, artifacts, and people that privilege physical interaction and presence. Guest artist visits, utilizing a local art museum, and other methods are explored as possibilities for this to be achieved.

This study presents an exploration of the autonomy-dependence paradox inherent in organization-public relationships that is informed by paradox theory, structuration theory and scholarly and philosophical literature on authenticity. These theories suggest that relationships between organizations and their publics are defined by interdependence, or the centripetal and centrifugal forces of autonomy and dependence that cause tensions that can influence the decision making of the relational partners. They also suggest that organizations must use their agency, their knowledge of relational structures, and their understanding of their authentic selves to manage their own behavior and communication rather than that of their publics. The case studies presented in this paper were assembled from fourteen semi-structured in-depth interviews of museum professionals at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art, museum archival documents, and news media reports. The data shows that organizations can benefit from adopting a framework based paradox theory, structuration theory, and authentic leadership theory to avoid harmful defensive mechanisms and vicious cycles by seeking divergent solutions. The value of this study is that it illustrates how paradoxical tensions can influence the decision-making process in organizations, as well as the ways in which organizations can manage their own behavior and communication in spite of natural tendencies to manage and control stakeholders and publics. This study also shows a need for future research to explore other paradoxes in the field of public relations, conduct more case studies of different types of organizations, and develop methodologies to evaluate the effect of these strategies on the health of organization-public relationships.

The purpose of this essay is to analyze how the Kalmar Art Museum's exhibitions use history during the period 1975-1985. This is examined in relation to previous research on how cultural policy manifests itself in Kalmar Art Museum's operations. By applying critical heritage studies, with concepts borrowed from postcolonialism and gendertheory, the essay will in turn identify three themes in Kalmar Art Museum's exhibitions: use of history, other cultures and gender. Empirical evidence shows that there are clear connections between Kalmar Art Museum's themes and the cultural policy at the time. This is evident in how the 70s were characterized by a problematizing view of history that goes hand in hand with the museum and cultural policies ambitions to devotethemselves to regionalization and public education. At the same time, the study willshow how at the end of the decade there is a change in how the museum markets itselfand creates a brand, which is further strengthened during the 80s. This change manifestsitself in how the museum devotes itself to an idealizing use of history that lacksproblematization to a greater extent.

This essay's main topic is how the digitalization of art affects the experience. This was done by comparing a digitalized and a physical viewing of the art exhibit Katja of Sweden at Kristinehamns Konstmuseum. The two versions were analysed through Spielberg’s seven phenomenological steps: experience, ideation, generalizing, nuancing, constitution, reduction, and interpretation. They were then compared through a comparative method highlighting the similarities and differences between the two versions of the art exhibit. The concept of a museum as a place and space was then analysed through Christian Norberg-Schultz's argument phenomenon of place, and Walter Benjamins's argument of the aura of the artwork. The conclusion that came from the analysis was that digitalization affected how the visitor interacted with the art exhibit's place and space. Even so, the digitalisation of the exhibit Katja of Sweden was deemed a necessary precaution to ensure that the visitors could take part in the exhibit even if the museum were closed, due to the restrictions that came with the Covid-19 pandemic.