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21 Dec 2011

Audio Podcast: Dr Mark Westgarth!

The Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery has initiated a new audio podcasting project, inviting academics from the University of Leeds to talk about an artwork in the Gallery.

A voice familiar to you all is that of Dr Mark Westgarth, who very kindly agreed to take part. Mark spoke on the 'The Striped Jug' (1914) by Ben Nicholson. Listen by going to the 'news' section of the Gallery home page here:

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/gallery/

19 Dec 2011

Biographical Dictionary of 19th Century Antique & Curiosity Dealers

Some of you may know that my Biographical Dictionary of 19th Century Antique & Curiosity Dealers, published in 2009, has now been reprinted, with a fabulous new cover!...it was previously only available to members of the Regional Furniture Society, but is now available to everyone!...You can even order a copy direct from me...email:
m.w.westgarth@leeds.ac.uk

Only £20.00 (plus £2.00 postage, in UK)...get a quote for International posting......if you're interested, of course! Ideal Christmas Present!


The Biographical Dictionary of 19th Century Antique & Curiosity Dealers is the first attempt to provide comprehensive biographical information about the community of interconnected antique and curiosity dealers active in the nineteenth century. An introduction containing forty one images, mainly in colour, and over twenty pages of text, outlines the origins and development of collecting and the trade in furniture over the period and provides a valuable background to the dictionary entries of over 600 dealers, which range in length from a few lines to over 2000 words. The majority of these dealers were based in London, but others operating throughout the United Kingdom, across Europe, the United States and former British Colonies are also represented. The Biographical Dictionary is a valuable resource for those interested in the history of the ‘antique trade’ and the history of collecting and is the first major research study of the highly significant subject matter.

Mark

18 Dec 2011

MGHG Conference July 2012


Cultures of Curating: Curatorial Practices and the Production of Meaning c. 1650-2000

The 2012 conference of the Museums and Galleries History Group, to be held at the University of Lincoln 12-13 July 2012

Call for papers

While museum history now acknowledges the constructed nature of the museum narrative, and maintains that museum work such as cataloguing, conserving and displaying is not neutral, but actually produces meaning, relatively little work has examined the ways in which curatorial practices have developed, and the specific consequences for museums. Display has attracted most of the work that has been done, but ‘behind the scenes’ activities have not been investigated in such depth. We seek submissions which investigate any aspect of the developing work of the curator, from creating an acquisitions policy, to labelling and documentation, to publicity work, as we wish to explore curating as both craft and profession. We also invite contributors to consider how curatorial practices constituted the museum object, and attempted to produce or suppress certain meanings for museum objects; and how such practices formed particular relationships between curators and other museum figures such as donors and visitors. We are interested in submissions which consider a wide variety of periods and places, and all types of curating, from fine art to science.

Confirmed keynote speaker: Dr Sam Alberti, Director, Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.

We invite papers on themes such as:
How curators were trained, and how they understood their role
Cataloguing and museum documentation
Acquisition – the role of the curator
Conservation and storage
Display and interpretation
How and why curatorial practices changed
The role of place and space in shaping curatorial practices
Curatorial practices, disciplines and discourses of knowledge
Curatorial practices and relationships with the wider public


We also invite session proposals. Session proposals should include a brief outline of the session (250 words) as well as three abstracts (300 words max. each) for the proposed session. For session proposals, please indicate who will chair the session.

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to chair@mghg.org or Kate Hill (khill@lincoln.ac.uk)
Closing date for proposals: 1 February 2012



6 Dec 2011

Alice in Wonderland at Tate Liverpool.


A black line. I nearly didn’t notice it. My sense of location in the exhibition shifted dramatically when I understood. This line demonstrates the height to which Alice grew. Consequently, in that moment, I shrank. Already I understood from the other works in this first room that I was somehow ‘in’ the text. However it was through Mel Bockner’s Measurement: Eye level Perimeter (ask Alice) that my sense of my own place and size as viewer shifted again. A very clever curation of works introduced me to the exhibition ‘Alice in Wonderland through the Visual Arts’.


More aware of the nature of my body within the space of the gallery, I climbed the stairs, looking forward to the next part of this exhibition which examines the influence of Alice in Wonderland on the visual arts. Extracts of text on the walls of the stairs took the form of concrete poetry written in perspective. Milder perceptual shifts, but again a clever conceit; a nod to the textual play in the book itself and a continuation of the slight disorientation of space and surface.


Reaching the fourth floor and the exhibition’s main focus, the effects of this hodological disorientation are allowed to disappear, this part of the exhibition reverts to a ‘glass case and pictures on the wall’ survey of material relating to Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and the Liddell sisters. The dark red wall colour and drapes though, hint at a theatrical and Victorian interior space, entirely appropriate for the displays of early copies of Alice, the original manuscript, photographs of the Liddell sisters and a wealth of Alice ephemera. As you progress through the labyrinthine space, the walls pale, and works become more recent; arranged in themes such as ‘Alice from the 1960’s’, ‘Alice Revisited’ and ‘Storytelling and Time’.


The analogy of being lost in time and space could continue, given that the exhibition is such a comprehensive survey of Alice related material, it requires a level of attention where ones experience of time slows. This though, was perhaps more a result of spending so long with such a variety of material rather than being the result of a curatorial device. However the catalogue ends by suggesting (referencing the authorhsip texts of Barthes and Foucault) that the power of the book lies in the fact that:


a reference to Alice can always be legitimately claimed whenever we, as the viewer, be it museum visitor, art critic, or exhibition curator, discern one and declare it to be so.


Containing works stretching from the original manuscript to recent works by Dan Graham, Gary Hill and Annelise Strba, the exhibition succeeded in not only developing, for me, a much deeper understanding of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as ‘gesamtkunstwerk’ but also the extent to which this story has become embedded in our consciousness. It introduced me to new ways of looking at works I was already familiar with, and showed me a range of work I had not encountered before. Alice in Wonderland runs at the Tate in Liverpool until 25 January 2012; I can thoroughly recommend it.

27 Nov 2011

Call for Papers - World Economic History Congress

CALL FOR PAPERS
XVIth World Economic History Congress
9th-13th July 2012
University of Stellenbosch, Cape Town, South Africa
Encountering the ‘exotic’: the collecting, trade and exchange of exotic goods between Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, from the 16th century to 21st century.
The encounter between travellers, merchants and explorers and the exchange of the ‘exotic’ acted as a diverse catalyst for cultural practices, innovation, technological change and economic generation. This session will explore the circulation, assimilation and appropriation of exotic and foreign goods as they are transported, translated, collected and exchanged between diverse cultures from the 16th century to the present day.
Thinking about ‘exotic’ goods invites us to pay attention to the role and function of the ‘exotic’ in different scales – across national boundaries, countries and cities; and in different spaces – in the public and the private domain – as well as the relationships between the places of consumption and the places of origin. This session aims to explore the influence of the encounter with all kinds of ‘exotic’ goods, from ritual objects, to artworks, from objects for the domestic interior, to technological, scientific and military objects; both newly made objects as well the old and the rare. By taking a broad time frame we hope to better understand the mutations of the exchange, collection, trade, display and production and consumption of ‘exotic’ goods and how these encounters influenced broader transnational and transcultural economic change.
The session aims to explore these exchanges both in terms of the perspective of the Western encounter with the ‘Other’ (the West’s appropriation, adaption and translation of the ‘exotic’), and from the perspective of the ‘Other’s’ encounter with the West (how the encounter impacted upon and stimulated economic activities in Asia, Africa and the Americas). The nature and status of ‘exotic’ goods are multiple and complex, as is the nature and status of the ‘exotic’ as it changed through time and space. In our increasingly complex world of exchange, tourism, and migration, the encounter with ‘exotic’ goods may be decreasing, but as a catalyst for the imagination the ‘exotic’ still has a profound impact upon economic activity and practices.
We invite papers to explore these themes and relationships from a wide range of perspectives:
-On the marketplace actors – the travellers, explorers, merchants, scientists, artists, curiosity dealers, collectors, soldiers.
-On the biographies of the ‘exotic’ objects themselves – ritual objects, domestic and luxury goods such as porcelain and lacquer, new technologies such as clocks and maps.
-On the spaces of exchange – market-places, auctions, shops.
-On the spaces of exhibition and display – institutions such as museums, public exhibitions and galleries, to the display in the domestic interior.

Please send abstracts of no more than 400 words to the session organisers:
Dr Manuel Charpy (CNRS France/University of Lille IRHIS) manuel.charpy@wanadoo.fr and Dr Mark Westgarth (School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds) m.w.westgarth@leeds.ac.uk
Closing Date for Abstracts: 15th February 2012

Level One Trip to Temple Newsam


Level One Country House & Museum Studies students again braved the cold to visit Temple Newsam last Thursday, thank you to all who attended. I look forward to reading the essays of those who choose to compare and contrast the presentation of this house with a National Trust or English Heritage property, it should result in some really interesting work.

Students making their way to visit the cute farm animals considering the repurposed estate buildings in context!

1 Nov 2011

Performativity in the Gallery - Call for papers for the next AAH conference

CALL FOR PAPERS: Performativity in the Gallery: Staging Interactive Encounters

Museum & Exhibitions Members’ Group Annual Session, the Association of Art Historians
38th Annual AAH Conference & Bookfair

Department of History of Art, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA
29 - 31 March 2012

This session explores participation, liveness, interactivity, process-based performative practices and performance for the camera in interdisciplinary practices, presented in visual arts gallery spaces. Live art and other multi-art form works that combine visual arts with performing arts such as dance and physical theatre have an intricate relationship with the canon of art history. Art history has been wary of live art’s tendency to encourage increased formal and conceptual risk-taking and its interdisciplinary nature. Time-based performances have also challenged the conventions of documentation and the viewer’s access to the art experience. A live art practitioner has yet to win the Turner Prize.

The session is particularly interested in new research analysing the intricate relationship between art history, live and performing arts and museum and gallery space; what it means to present, curate and create interdisciplinary performative work for gallery spaces. The Museums & Exhibitions Members’ Group invites papers from a wide range of practitioners, including art historians, curators and artists, to consider performativity in gallery spaces across all historic and contemporary periods.

The 2012 AAH Annual Conference will showcase the diversity and richness of art history in the UK and globally over an extensive chronological range. Like The Open University itself, AAH2012 is open to all people, places and ideas. This three-day event will present a broad scope of geographies and methodologies, ranging from object-based studies, socio-historical analyses, theoretical discourses, visual culture of the moving image, exhibition cultures and display. Sessions and papers will reflect the composition of the wide constituency that is art history today. Further conference info & fees: http://www.aah.org.uk/page/3327

If you would like to propose a paper, please email the session convenors directly. Please submit an abstract of your proposed paper in no more than 250 words, your name and institutional affiliation (if you have one). You will receive acknowledgement of receipt of your submission within two weeks. Please read the Conditions of Submission at: http://www.aah.org.uk/media/docs/Code%20of%20Practice%20-%20sessions_ALinkAH2011.pdf

Session Convenors:
Dr Outi Remes, South Hill Park Arts Centre, outi.remes@southhillpark.org.uk
Dr Marika Leino, Christie’s Education mleino@christies.com

Deadline for submissions: 7 November 2011.

Merchants of Modernism talk by Mark


Hope those of you involved in the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery displays have recovered from all the relentless hard work? Congratulations again on your achievement!

Coming soon, a free talk that might interest students of Museum Studies...by one of your favourite lecturers!


'Merchants of Modernism: Dealers, Exhibitions and the promotion of the avant-garde, 1900-1939' - Talk by Dr. Mark Westgarth
Saturday, 12 November 2011, 3pm

The rise in the interest in the avant-garde is a story that mirrors the evolving conditions of modernity in the early 20th century. New kinds of dealers and new commercial art galleries disseminated avant-garde artworks to a metropolitan public through innovative exhibition strategies, new marketing techniques and the professional practices of the modern art dealer. Focusing on some of the most significant art dealers in the period, including Paul Durand-Ruel and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, and some high profile exhibitions at galleries such as Grafton Galleries, Reid & Lefevre, Leicester Galleries, this introductory talk maps the evolution of the modern art market at a critical moment in its development.

Free event, all welcome. No booking necessary.

Find us at:The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery
Parkinson Building
Woodhouse Lane
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT

Telephone: 0113 343 2778
Fax: 0113 343 5561 (Please mark for the attention of the Art Gallery)
Email: gallery@leeds.ac.uk
Gallery blog: https://elgg.leeds.ac.uk/burton/weblog/
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stanley-and-Audrey-Burton-Gallery/170745069618675
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sabgallery

28 Oct 2011

Display at the Henry Moore Institute Library

I just wanted to publicise a small display I’ve curated at the Henry Moore Institute Library entitled 'A Revelation of Unexpected Associations: J.G. Ballard, Eduardo Paolozzi and Helen Chadwick in Ambit'. It’s about the art and literature journal Ambit and the contributions of the writer J.G. Ballard and the artists Helen Chadwick and Eduardo Paolozzi. Please see the link below for further info:

http://www.henry-moore.org//hmi/library/on-display1/a-revelation-of-unexpected-associations

It’s running until the 25th November 2011. Please visit if you get a chance!

Liz (ex MA student, Art Gallery and Museum Studies)

25 Oct 2011

MA Art Gallery Students Exhibition Projects

The current cohort of postgraduate museum studies students completed installation of their exhibition projects at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Art Gallery last week.  They were very busy in the planning processes...and with almost 30 students, and just two groups, the management of responsibilities was quite a challenge...one that they all overcame brilliantly I may add!

Both Exhibitions Opened on 17th October, and you can see their excellent efforts until 10th December 2011....do pop along!

Exhibition Title Panel
Group A, decided to work with the Gallery ceramics collections, and produced a fabulous exhibition theme - 'Fancy a Brew'? 18th century drinking cultures'.....

MA Students preparing their exhibition
They worked hard of selecting the objects and working up a theme...as you can see....

Don't drop it!           
                                         

The other Student Group also produced a fabulous exhibition - this time using paintings, prints, books and associated ephemera from the Bloomsbury Group...both from the Art Gallery holdings, and material from the University Brotherton Library Special Collections.... Their exhibition is entitled: 'Connecting Lives: Intimate Artworks of the Bloomsbury Group'......and they were equally animated in their preparations...
Preparing Exhibitions
Group Discussions
 .........and the project meetings were very professional....as you can see!

Well Done to all the Students!...Fantastic Work!
.......Mark






                                                    

14 Oct 2011

Level One Visit to Harewood House


Thank you to the level one Country House and Museum Studies students, who all made the trip to Harewood House on a misty Yorkshire morning this week. After taking in the exterior, state rooms, below stairs area and terrace gallery, there was even time to explore the grounds and say a brief hello to the resident penguins (while of course asking ourselves why they are there in the first place!) I hope it was an enjoyable and productive experience which provided plenty of food for thought.


12 Oct 2011

Volunteer Opportunities at the Hepworth

The Hepworth, Wakefield, are looking for a range of volunteers, both for half term and beyond. If interested you should visit www.hepworthwakefield.org/volunteering, for updates on opportunities and to download an application form. Thanks to those of you who attended the volunteering event there last night. They were really impressed by the Leeds Uni students.

8 Oct 2011

Museology Seminar Series X


‘MUSEOLOGY SEMINAR SERIES’
Series X



Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage
School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies
University of Leeds

A Rehabilitation Revolution

Rachel Forster
AHRC CDA PhD Research Student
School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies
University of Leeds

Thursday 20th October 2011
11-14 Belnheim Terrace, Room G.11
3.00pm-4.00pm

ALL WELCOME

For further information on this Seminar Series please email
Dr Mark Westgarth m.w.westgarth@leeds.ac.uk
School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds

27 Sept 2011

Love arts Festival launches in Leeds

Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough and didn't post this in time for the launch at Opera North's Howard Assembly Room last night. However all is not lost! Running from 27th September until Wednesday 16th November, this brand new, first-year festival sees arts organisations across Leeds, uniting with Leeds Partnerships NHS Foundation Trust and the Art and Mind Network in an exploration of arts, mental health and well-being. With both arts and mental health being such broad and complex areas of study, it will definitely be enlightening to see how they are tackled in relation to each other, with the added diversity of Leeds as the setting.


With the likes of Ruby Wax and Phil Hammond getting involved, I have my fingers crossed publicity isn't a problem. Due to the stigma surrounding mental health problems and unease when it comes to discussing such issues in depth, I feel this collaboration with the rich art and culture that Leeds has to offer, will shed some light and provoke some thought on a subject that needs opening up. Art, in all it's forms , is an expression, a release and this experience is heightened further still, when a form of escape is just what the doctor ordered.



You can find more information and a list of all events taking place here, http://loveartsleeds.co.uk/



Here's to hoping this festival becomes a more permanent fixture in the affluent collection of culture and arts events, the city of Leeds already has to offer.

26 Sept 2011

Congratulations!...Student Volunteer Awards

Congratulations to our MA Art Gallery & Museum Studies student, Elizabeth Stainforth - she has won the prestigious 'Volunteers for Museum Learning Award' for the Yorkshire Region, as part of the Marsh Volunteer Awards 2010, for her outstanding work at the University Stanley & Audrey Burton Art Gallery.....The Awards are run by the British Museum and the Marsh Christian Trust.....WELL DONE Liz!....
See you (and all the other 2010-11 cohort of students) at Graduation in December!

Mark

24 Sept 2011

Doodlers Unite: Big Draw Challenge and Big Draw Day at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery

Doodle now!

Preparing for our month-long sketchbook challenge for the Big Draw campaign, I accidentally came across this TED video about doodling and how it improves comprehension and unlocks creativity. Doodlers unite!




And once you've shed your inhibitions about doodling and become empowered by this short video, you'll be interested to run to our nearest Big Draw station at uni and sketch away. Here are the details:

The Big Draw: Sketchbook Challenge
The Campaign for Drawing has one aim: to get everyone drawing!

Held throughout October, The Big Draw is the Campaign's flagship programme and aims to bring communities together in creative ways. Join the largest drawing festival in the world! The Sketchbook Challenge, this year’s Big Draw activity of the university’s Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, has been inspired by the sketchbooks by the artist and art historian Stephen Chaplin (born 1934). To find out more about Chaplin and to see a selection of his fascinating sketchbooks please visit the Brotherton Library foyer from Monday 3rd October – Friday 21st October.

Between 1 and 21 October, ourlovely concertina sketchbooks will appear in various places around the whole university campus so you can sketch in all of them!

You can pick up a map of the locations at the Gallery. Please note that not all areas are open to the public.

Start drawing!
Take a few minutes to look around your surroundings, document the moment through a quick sketch in the sketchbook provided.

Stephen Chaplin often sketched the most mundane objects such as crumpled crisp packets and his mug of tea, often annotating his sketch with a couple of words, date and time, the weather, or his personal impressions, e.g. ‘Tea & ham sandwich in the first floor cafĂ© – waiting for departure, platform 6, Salisbury’. You might have time to draw what’s going on the next table or out of the window. You could add a date, time, include your name or remain anonymous, annotate your sketch to set the scene for others. Be part of the exhibition.

Fill the sketchbooks with your observations, ideas and doodles, and your art will be displayed in the Brotherton Library Foyer and outside The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, Parkinson Court from Monday 24th October.

Doodle and chill with friends: Big Draw Day in the Gallery
In connection with the month-long drawing campaign, the Gallery will host a drawing and sketching afternoon on Saturday 8 October.

The Gallery will celebrate Big Draw Day by transforming the Gallery space into a cosy place where you can drop in to meet people, doodle and have a chat about art, universe and everything.

There will be beanbags, pencils, sketchbooks, music, and lots of inspiration.

The sketchbooks collected from campus and the Gallery will be exhibited from 24 October 2011.

The Campaign for Drawing will finish when the words 'I can't draw' are dropped from our vocabulary!

23 Sept 2011

Add Image
Rise Art, the curated art marketplace, recently launched across the UK. The website, which commissions and promotes the work of talented emerging and established artists across the globe, now has thousands of artists portfolios listed across the site, and a growing board of curators who, along with our users help select the artists featured across the site.

The team at Rise Art has announced an open call for submissions. Artists are encouraged to submit their profile and upload works to the site.

Artists and enthusiasts can also take advantage of Rise Art's community tools to connect with one another and promote upcoming events and exhibitions. To get started visit www.riseart.com

Finally, the team is looking for current Leeds students with a keen interest in curatorial and gallery studies to participate in the public discourse on Rise Art and help shortlist artist portfolios across the website for consideration. If you would like to get involved, please email the Rise Art team at info (at) Rise Art (dot) com.

22 Sept 2011

WELCOME to our Undergraduate Students!

The new intake of Leeds University undergraduate students - not just the Art History & Museum Studies students, but students from the art history, cultural studies and fine art programmes as well, all gathered at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery at the University for a soiree this evening. There were speeches and some really nice wine, plus some fab goody bags full of interesting art gallery stuff for everyone (thanks to Layla Bloom at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery).....
BA Students at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery

The students are a great bunch, lively and inquisitive, and seem to be enjoying their first week at university.....teaching starts next week though....but I'm sure they will be conscientious!

Keep up to date with the progress of the Museum Studies students (both BA and MA) on the Blog!

Mark

21 Sept 2011

Museology Seminar Series VIII

                      ‘MUSEOLOGY SEMINAR SERIES’
                                              Series VIII


   Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage
        School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies
                                      University of Leeds

                 'Museums are made for discourse':
    A comparative study of the Le Quai Branly  
     and the Cite nationale de L'immigration
                                               
                                                           By Dr Diane Morgan
                                    Lecturer, Cultural Studies
                                         University of Leeds


                                 Monday 14th November 2011
                                            3.00pm-4.00pm
                                     Baines Wing, Room 1.15
                                         University of Leeds

                                                    FREE!
                                           ALL WELCOME