This research examined perceptions of knowledge about art in the gallery and explored the potential of co-creation as a possible model with which to genuinely learn with our audience. Data for the study was generated at a gallery I have been based at throughout the period of undertaking the research. Participants were recruited from this gallery from groups implicated in knowledge co-creation: educators, curators, gallery assistants and audience members. Participants took part in a group workshop at the gallery facilitated by an artist educator, designed to provide opportunities to develop new knowledge together. Following the workshop, participants were interviewed and their experiences analysed. Other data generated through the workshop, as well as analysis of organisational documentation, and reflection on my own practice as a gallery educator, have been drawn together through a bricolage approach. Through analysis of data, I have constructed a situated taxonomy of knowledge types in the gallery and a conceptual model of co-creation. Key paradigms of knowledge have been identified, and the issues associated with the authoritative nature of institutional knowledge presented as a significant barrier to co-creation. Findings indicate that a fundamental shift in the epistemological stance of the gallery is required. A new not-knowing paradigm has been constructed to accommodate models of co-creation shown to be successful in generating a collaborative learning experience, which I have termed ‘learning-with’.The material being presented for examination is my own work and has not been submitted for an award of this or another HEI except in minor particulars which are explicitly noted in the body of the thesis. Where research pertaining to the thesis was undertaken collaboratively, the nature and extent of my individual contribution has been made explicit.

No description available.

This thesis investigates the professional practice of the National Portrait Gallery's first Director Sir George Scharf (1820–95). It is the first focused analysis of his career and influence, within the nineteenth-century art and museum worlds. It attempts to position Scharf in relation to developments in art historical scholarship and the professionalization of museum practice, in the second half of the 1800s. Chapter 1 outlines Scharf's methodology for portraiture research and considers his scientific approach alongside the establishment of art history as a discipline during his lifetime. Whilst exploring Scharf's development of research standards to be carried forward by successors, it argues for his active role amongst a growing contingent of museum professionals. Chapter 2 reconstructs Scharf's social and professional networks, collating the names of individuals with whom he interacted and mapping the physical sites of engagement. It proposes that access to contacts proved vitally important to his official work and that Scharf himself functioned as an influential figure in this sphere. The third chapter concerns the nature of Scharf's relationships with members of the NPG's Board of Trustees. It investigates his early collaboration with two expert Trustees and charts his interactions with consecutive Chairmen of the Board, demonstrating Scharf's increasing authority with regards to Gallery procedures. Chapters 4 and 5 explore Scharf's interventions relative to the organization and interpretation of the collection across the NPG's early exhibition spaces. Chapter 4 argues that an increased capacity for display enabled Scharf to implement a rational hanging scheme, in line with the Gallery's instructive purpose and inspired by contemporary debates over the efficient presentation of public art. The final chapter documents Scharf's efforts to contextualize the national portraits, ranging from manipulating the exhibition environment, to expanding the NPG's catalogue according to a scholarly model. In its examination of George Scharf's career spanning five decades, particularly his engagement with discourse surrounding public art museums in the Victorian period, this thesis aims to make a significant contribution to the fields of museum studies and studies in the history of collecting and display.

Research on constraints to leisure and recreation participation has focused on various types of activities in which people would like to participate, are currently participating, or have stopped participating. However, little attention has been made to identify constraints associated with art activities participation. The objectives of this study were to 1) identify factors which limit people's attendance to art museums/galleries; 2) address the issue of the internal heterogeneity between two constrained leisure behaviors; 3) reveal the role of previous participation, interest in future participation, gender and lifecycle in the perception of constraints to art activities; and 4) show the validity of segmentation criteria which are previous participation, interest in future participation, gender and lifecycle. Data from the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA 1997) was used in this study. Total sample was divided into four categories by previous participation and interest in future participation. Further, the categories 'participants with interest' and 'non-participants with interest' were sub-divided based on gender and lifecycle. The results revealed that time, cost, access and availability were considered as the most significant constraints to art activity participation across all segments. However, the array and intensity of constraints differed depending on the types of constrained leisure. In addition, different types of constraints were experienced with different intensity by segments defined by previous participation, interest in future participation, gender and lifecycle. The analyses demonstrated that previous participation, interest in future participation, gender and lifecycle were important segmentation criteria in constructing homogeneous groups with respect to perceived leisure constraints.

The nineteen forties and nineteen fifties, acknowledged as the decades in which New York first emerged as a locus for modern art production of international stature (particularly the so-called 'New York School '), also witnessed its development into a market for modern art, both European and American, and it is upon this that this study focuses. A modern art market is a 'support-system' which consists of not only the producer-artists and consumer-collectors but also of a number of 'intermediaries'. This complex, in addition to the actual purchase of art works, serves, for instance: to disseminate a knowledge about modern art in general; to select particular artists and promote their work in the public eye; to support contemporary artists financially; and to enhance the sphere of collecting activity. The groups or institutions involved in these functions vary according to historical circumstances, and the first part of this study identifies the key constituents of the 'support-system' in the New York art market in this period as: New York museums concerned with modern and contemporary art, both foreign and native, private dealer-galleries, and collectors; and examines what parts each played in the structure of the art market as a whole, paying particular attention to the influence of wider socio-economic factors upon this. This 'support-system' structure discussed in the first part may be considered as synchronic. The second part of this study, however, concentrates upon an examination of changing trends in prices and in collectors' preferences for different artistic expressions (particularly the relative status of American as against European modern art). Emphasis is placed in this upon demonstrating where possible how such developments were related to the functioning of the support system as discussed; and to situating the behaviour of the New York art market of the period into a wider national socio-economic context.

No description available.

This thesis is the written result of a practice-based PhD. The thesis presents a 'located' model of curatorial practice that aims to actively benefit the cultural landscape of host regions. It challenges existing definitions of 'the curatorial', taking a multidisciplinary understanding of curatorial practice and evaluating curatorial methods in light of recent geo-political developments. Concerned with the effects of changes in European cultural policy, and the geopolitical position of the Mediterranean basin, this thesis evaluates contemporary curatorial practices in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership context and, through practice-based interventions, suggests ways to develop situated curatorial processes, appropriate to their geographical context. Specifically, I argue that the temporary, large-scale exhibition formats financially supported by EU policies, such as the European Regional Development Fund, are not necessarily the most appropriate or beneficial to the cultural development of their host regions. I therefore propose an alternative set of methods, tools and considerations for a self-reflexive model of curatorial practice. This proposal takes the form of a curatorial initiative 'Vessel'; a long-term practice-based research project that seeks models of practice that effectively enable local engagement in cultural production, allowing culture to flourish independently of larger hegemonies. Several of Vessel's experimental initiatives are presented here, and appraised in order to build a theoretical understanding of 'located' curatorial practices that can inform alternative approaches. This research is developed through case studies of Manifesta, Liminal Spaces, Matadero and Intermediae; all of them testing grounds for 'Vessel', a curatorial initiative based in Puglia, Italy. Puglia has been chosen as a site for this research because of its central role in the current Mediterranean situation. This thesis illustrates the theoretical, geographical and historical context of this investigative project, and documents the evolution and outcomes of the curatorial initiative attempted. This thesis represents the first practice-based study of contemporary curatorial practices in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EUROMED) context, which seeks primarily to develop situated curatorial processes appropriate to their geographical context. The thesis discusses aspects of human geography, cultural studies, social science and European studies, all filtered through practical implementation and reflective examination of the main discipline of interest: curatorial studies. This research acknowledges the role of the curator as a mediator between cultural producers and the political and bureaucratic conditions for cultural production. This role offers the opportunity to develop an awareness of the potential influence of those conditions on the artists, their work and their audiences. In other words, the curator is in a unique position to have an overview of the practices, interests and concerns of cultural producers, as well as those of policy makers and administrative bodies, and any potential conflicts of interest that may arise. Thus, curators are in a privileged position to operate as proactive agents, particularly when they observe that cultural policies are not achieving the aim of fostering cultural development. This thesis, therefore, invites curators to consider their responsibility to critically assess the long-term effects of their practice on cultural and epistemological development in Europe. The thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 presents the research questions, clarifying their terminology and broadly discussing their rationale, context and theoretical focus. The chapter questions current EU cultural and economic strategies and suggests that they may be misguided. In Chapter 2, the level of analysis shifts from the geo-political context to a more specific situation: the position of art practitioners involved in the above situation, and the outcomes produced. Since the exhibition format is popular and has been envisioned by the EU cultural agenda as one of the most effective instruments for creating a dialogue between different geographical areas, Chapter 2 challenges this understanding of the format and the ways of production embedded in it. Chapter 3 presents a series of alternative curatorial approaches coming from the South and related to the four theoretical pillars of the self-reflexive approach: geography, time, process and epistemology. Starting with the methods used to investigate the case studies, the chapter traces connections between theory and practice. The chapter moves through close readings of the alternative case studies and comparative analysis, to the use of self- reflexive practice. Chapter 4 is at the heart of the thesis: it presents the methodologies underpinning both the approach to case study analysis and the practical research. This involves the curatorial proposal put forward and practised through Vessel. Vessel is therefore presented, in Chapter 4, as a self-reflexive model of located curatorial practice that is appropriate for located curatorial engagement. The conclusion addresses the capacity of curatorial practices to cultivate local epistemologies. I propose the outcome of the Vessel research project, and associated case studies as a set of curatorial methods and considerations for a 'located' model of curatorial practice.

This research aims to establish a new way of understanding the ‘problem’ of children and young people’s participation. The problem is that the reality of participation has not lived up to its theoretical promise of enabling children and young people to meaningfully shape their environment on their own terms. With a reflexive approach, the research reformulates the relationship between the theory and reality of children and young people’s participation through investigating two case studies of participation projects in museums and galleries in the UK. In the literature review the problem of participation is situated within the policy, organisational and personal contexts; at each level of context, it is argued that there are fundamental, intractable reasons why the promise of participation cannot be realised in practice. In the case studies participation in practice is investigated in an in-depth way from a range of perspectives, focusing on the framing, practice and experience of the projects through discourse analysis of project documentation, observation of the projects in practice, and interviews with the participants. In the case studies the theoretical contradictions of participation emerge in practice; while the organisations attempt to enable the participants to engage with the project on their own terms, the top-down organisation of the project mean that controls over the participants are unintentionally created. The participants engaged with and experienced the projects in different ways and types of participants were identified in terms of how the projects were navigated. It was found that all participants were able to draw a positive experience from the projects even though there were problematic aspects. In response to the intractable problems of participation, in conclusion it is suggested that ‘spaciousness’ may be a more useful concept, focusing on enabling young people to make sense of their ambivalent experience in organisations in their own way.

The thesis explores the growing impact of copyright in art museums and galleries in the digital environment. Copyright has a great significance in these institutions but it has not received adequate academic consideration. The aim of this thesis is to examine the role of copyright and underline the foremost copyright challenges to museums and galleries in order to find out the appropriate approach to deal with them. The main argument is that copyright challenges museums and galleries to the extent it could disturb the survival of their mission in the digital domain. It argues that copyright provides insufficient protection to museums and galleries when they are copyright owners of digital and contemporary artistic works in particular. Also, it argues that copyright restricts the capacity of using artistic works by museums and galleries as cultural institutions and therefore it obstructs their activities and mission. Further, it argues that uncertain and deficient copyright policy and management practices represent impediment to the continuity and progress of museums and galleries in the digital era. To this effect, the thesis takes analytical approach and considers the legal primary and secondary resources of relevant laws, cases, academic commentary and journal articles. The legal framework is focused on copyright law of the United Kingdom as stated in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and its amendments. Furthermore, the thesis incorporates a review of an empirical study about the impact of copyright in museums and galleries and which is undertaken for this research purposes. The thesis concludes that it is necessary to deal with the specified copyright challenges in a way that maintains and promotes the mission of museums and galleries and facilitates a broader public access to their collections in the digital environment. In order to achieve this, it is recommended that some copyright law reform is needed concerning in particular copyright protection of artistic works and copyright exceptions available to museums and galleries for specific purposes such as preservation, research, and education. Also, it is proposed that museums and galleries require enhanced understanding of copyright law, more awareness, careful consideration and efficient management of copyright.

This is an adaptive reuse thesis project of an old warehouse on the south side of Richmond, Virginia. Through this project, the possibility of designing an art center to occupy the space is explored. This art center houses artist studios, gallery space as well as open studio space for art classes. The design concept establishes a building language and varies that language based on the space and its requirements. The final design also deals with the spaces in between, where one rule set meets another.