April 17, 2003
MA programs and new books
From e-mail correspondence:
I made my first visit to the CCS Museum at Bard College on Sunday. A free day trip. I enjoyed being out in the sun and lying on the grass, as well as having an opportunity to talk at length with the museum's curator and a number of Chelsea art world people that I normally only see in passing. I met a number of students who have been accepted or waitlisted for autumn admission to the program, and talking with them has since led me to think about CCS and the like at some length.
I have always felt that the CCS program is more of a 'finishing school' (and, to continue the analogy, its exhibition openings a 'debutante ball') than anything else. Overheard on Sunday: "Kelly, this is Jeremy Deller..."; "Kelly, I'd like you to meet Ally, she works closely with Maurizio Cattelan..."; "Kelly, this is Aida Ruilova, a young video artist." The three student exhibitions were not very strong. The museum is beautiful, the teachers seem excellent, and everyone gets to meet everyone else, but I wonder about the content of the courses themselves. Is there (somewhat) rigorous art historical scholarship? Are other aspects of the humanities discussed?
I always come off a bit dismissive of the program when discussing it, and I think part of it can be tied to a fear that the CCS and Columbia University Modern Art and Curatorial Studies programs are creating an entire generation of curators who might not know what they're doing. (While simultaneously overcrowding the field and pushing others who do not have MA degrees—ie, me—out of the way.) If there are, say, fifteen Assistant Curator-type positions at well-respected contemporary art museums in this country, these graduate programs churn out twice as many bright young things as potential available positions every year. I'm afraid it will soon become mandatory to have one of these degrees. What do you think? How did your MA experience play out in the application process for the job you now have? What do you think about people who go straight from an undergraduate art history program to a graduate curatorial studies program without getting into the muck of the art world between? For me, it can be scary to see a relatively new field solidify before your very eyes when you're too young to yet be on the inside.
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On another note, thanks to the Strand, I finally picked up Avishai Margalit's The Ethics of Memory. I'm looking forward to starting it when I climb into bed tonight. I also received Steve Beard's Aftershocks: The End of Style Culture for review on the FILM-PHILOSOPHY e-mail list. I can tell by looking at the table of contents that I'm not going to like this book. But it's nice to receive stuff for free. It makes me feel legitimate.