Curation Exploration

Art students at UMass are getting a firsthand look at what it means to have a career in curation thanks to Collecting 101: Acquiring Art for the UMCA (University Museum of Contemporary Art). Students in this class are tasked with a project most undergraduate art students don’t have a chance to do until far past graduation: purchasing works of art for a museum. And the process isn’t hypothetical—by the end of the semester, students will have spent their budget on a new piece for the university’s collection.

This course sees museums as a public good and offers a true reflection of the ethics behind curation. Students in Collecting 101 form teams around artists chosen by the professors leading the class. Then, the students end the semester by presenting a piece of art by their designated artist to the public. Attendees at their presentation—which is open to anyone—vote on the nominations and welcome the chosen work to the university’s collection.

The winner of the fall 2023 vote was a diptych by Cindy Sherman, but with the help of a last-minute fundraiser, UMCA students ultimately welcomed these three new pieces to the collection.

Check out this Boston Globe feature on Collecting 101 to learn more about the class.