2. Museum Assignment

20% of your grade = 20 points. 

In this assignment you will explore what counts as a museum, an artwork, as something feminist.  You may find helpful “How to Analyze a work of Art” at http://www.ehow.com/how_6541679_analyze-work-art.html  as well as the various readings assigned in class.  You must include at least 3 readings (not including How to Analyze a work of art) in your paper. 

 1) Choose which museum you will visit:  You will need to spend a few hours there, so make sure you give yourself a day, or at least a long morning or afternoon to make the trip. Take friends, family, partners, roommates, classmates with you! Make it as fun as possible! Talk to others about what you see, and get various opinions about the museums, exhibits and artworks.

Metro info: http://www.wmata.com/

Shuttle UM:http://www.transportation.umd.edu/shuttle.html/

Look at museum websites for days, hours, directions, and other info.

·       African Art Museum: http://africa.si.edu/

·       American Art Museum: americanart.si.ed

 ·     American Indian Museum: http://americanindian.si.edu/

·       Anacostia Community Museum: http://anacostia.si.edu/

·       Freer Gallery of Art/Sackler Gallery: http://asia.si.edu/

·       Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden: http://www.hirshhorn.si.edu

·       Portrait Gallery: http://www.npg.si.edu/

·       Renwick Gallery: Currently closed to the public.

·       National Museum of Women in the Arts (students $8; 1st Sun free): http://www.nmwa.org/

·       Corcoran Gallery of Art (students $8): http://www.corcoran.org/

·       National Gallery: http://www.nga.gov/

·       United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (federal and private):http://www.ushmm.org/

·       American Visionary Art Museum (Baltimore, students $9.95):http://www.avam.org/

Online Museum: The International Museum of Women: http://imow.org/home/index

·       Something not on this list you want to explore – ask me for approval.

2) Take careful notes of the following at the venue that you visit: at each one pick (at least) one exhibition to consider specifically and one artwork to analyze:

= What do you notice first about this building or site?

= Who is this place for? How can you tell?

= Where are the women? artists, visitors, curators, collectors: how can you find out?

= Is there a store? What’s available there and how much do things generally cost?

= What guidance do visitors get? What do you find most useful yourself?

= How can you tell what is here? What is on permanent exhibition? What is new & current?

= What issues of social justice are on display and how? Which social groups are addressed?

= Is this museum “feminist”? How can you tell? 

= Which exhibition most catches your eye and interest? Why?

= What can you find out about the exhibition as a whole: who put it together and why? how can you tell? what information is available about this? are there brochures? are there catalogs?

Take any free brochures and look through (or buy if you want) available catalogs. Are there tours, cell phone info, labels, what else? Read all wall info. Who paid for this?

= Is this exhibition “feminist”? How can you tell? 

= Which one artwork most interests you? Why?

= What can you find out about it?

= What do you notice about it? What about it matters most to you?

= Is this artwork “feminist”? How can you tell? Who created it? Who is the intended audience? Does it represent women’s lives and experiences? 

3) Go online and see what is available

for the museum you visited, the exhibition you chose, the artwork you examined; at the museum site and elsewhere on the web.

= What social media does this museum take advantage of and how? How does it add to your analysis and understandings?

= What larger institutions, corporations, educational foundations, government entities, or publics, activisms, politics is the museum, exhibition or artwork part of?

= Do you find anything unexpected on the web?

= What did you learn from your visit that could not have been learned only looking on the web?

4) Using these questions as a guide, you will write a 4-5 page essay about your museum visit.

Your paper should open with a page that addresses what a feminist approach to art might be, and/or what the definition of feminist art might be.  This should be  followed by a description of museum that you visited, the exhibit you chose to focus on and the piece of artwork you examined, and then an exploration of whether they are feminist or not.  The main questions to answer: Is this museum feminist? Is this exhibit feminist? Is this artwork feminist? Why or why not?  The questions above should help you answer these larger questions, as well as the readings that we have completed in class.  You may include personal bits about the experiences involved, your thoughts and questions, and your companions.  You should write several drafts, and I encourage you to show your work to others and get advise on how it may be better written.  This is particularly useful for catching spelling errors, grammar, typos, etc. If English is not your native language, this may be especially useful.

5) Be sure you do not copy things off the web without attributions.

If you use anyone else’s words be sure to cite these! Add a bibliography that includes all the websites you visited and any catalogs, brochures or wall labels you quote or use information from, and any other materials you used. Any standard style is acceptable: APA, MLA, Chicago. To find out more Google “citation styles” and use those sites to help you.

Credits: This assignment was developed, and in some places, directly copied from a similar assignment for WMST 250 taught by Dr. Katie King in Spring 2011.