Exhibition Proposal
OVERVIEW
Art museums and galleries are usually two of the places where we can see historical and important artwork. Usually, an exhibition is planned years in advance, however, sometimes things change depending on what is going on in the world. A team of curators, artists, designers, scholars, writers, etc come together to create an exhibition that others could connect to. An exhibition constructs a narrative around a theme or topic that is conveyed through the artworks selected for it. For your final project, you will be creating a presentation where you will take the role of the curator and come up with an exhibition idea and create an exhibition proposal for it. It will be up to you to choose a theme and which artists to choose. Be creative and choose something that you like or you would like to see in a museum.
REQUIREMENTS
1. Your presentation should have one theme that unifies all the artworks you will be presenting.
2. You can focus on visual art, design, architecture, film, popular culture, etc. You can also mix these categories, as long as they have the same theme. For example, if your theme will be about Flowers in Japanese art, then you will need to make sure every artwork you choose takes that into consideration.
3. Your presentation should include at least 20 artworks from different artists.
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Select a theme and title It will be up to you what theme you want for your exhibition, however, you want to make sure you have chosen artworks that are cohesive. For example, if you choose something like “blue in art”, you do not want to just choose artworks that have blue on them ( there are too many and they can be too different). You want to be more specific, such as “ blue in Impressionist art” or “ blue in protest art and its meaning”. Do not forget to choose a title for your chosen theme. Come up with something that could grab the viewer’s attention.
Here are some examples of art exhibitions:
Dallas Museum of Art- Dior: From Paris to the World https://dma.org/dior ○ This exhibition focused on the work by Dior. The museum created a timeline of their work, that way, viewers could see how older work was influencing newer pieces.
The Design Museum-Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street https://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/sneakers-unboxed-studio-to-street ○ This exhibition focuses on one object, the sneaker, its history and how it is made.
The Modern Museum- Women Painting Women https://www.themodern.org/exhibition/women-painting-women ○ This exhibition focuses on women artists who chose to paint women as their subject matter. The curators chose to focus on artworks from the 1960s to the present.
Museum of Arts and Design- Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986 https://madmuseum.org/sites/default/files/static/press/Apr%202019/Punk_Graphics_P ressRelease_Final%21.pdf ● This exhibition focuses on 10 years of one movement ( punk and postpunk). It focuses on the art, history, and culture of that movement.
Examples of themes:
Texas Sculpture
Contemporary Native American Artworks
Magical Realism
OP Art in America
If you need inspiration, google “ museum name+ past exhibitions” or “museum name + upcoming exhibitions” or check a museum’s website and look for their exhibitions. Do not copy their work.
2. Work on your presentation After selecting a topic and your title, you should start working on your presentation.
You can use Google Slides, Powerpoint, or Adobe Spark.
3. Layout
The first slide- Title
The second slide- a statement about your exhibition ( tell us some background info about your chosen theme. This should prepare the viewer for what they are about to see. It is also the viewer’s first introduction to this exhibition )
Examples: https://www.unboundvisualarts.org/curatorial-statements/ https://www.contemporaryartawards.com/post/exhibitionstatements
The rest of the slides should have the artworks you chose, make sure to include the following information:
Artist name
Title of work
Date
Medium
Dimensions
Any important information about the work that relates to your theme. A short paragraph should be included that tells us more about the work in your own words. This short paragraph should be written by you, do not copy/paste.
Examples of presentations made by past students:
Modernization of Original Art
Cultural Identity and Race in Art
4. Sources- Your last page should include the links to your sources ( no specific format, just include your links)
5. No use of AI, at all.
GRADE BREAKDOWN
This assignment is worth 15% of your overall course grade.
