Spring 2021
PHOT 4010.01
© Bill Barrett 2021
SV 260 for class meetings; meet in the gallery for installations; receptions this semester are on Zoom.
Feedback (general opinions, problems, suggestions, etc.) on this hypersyllabus is encouraged! Bookmark this, but don't rely on printing it out. It is very likely that this page will be updated in the course of the semester.
Class description: Students learn all aspects of running a nonprofit photography gallery, including publicity, maintaining a mailing list and web site, hanging and striking shows, having openings. May be repeated once for credit. 3 credits.
Learning Outcomes:
How you're graded (assessment criteria): Your final grade is based on your performance throughout the semester. attendance and active participation count for 20%; your research paper counts for 25%; your reaction papers count for 10%; in-class exercises (e.g., publication design) count for 15%; your work in the gallery (e.g., laying out shows, managing openings) counts for 30%. Doing more than required can earn you extra credit; talk to me outside class if you're interested. This is what grades mean....
Class meetings are on Fridays from 3-3:50, except as noted. Please pay special attention to the days when we meet in the gallery. We are planning virtual Friday receptions from 5-6 pm, but you should plan to be there 4:30-6:30 pm. Current schedule of shows and opening is at the gallery's web site. Future shows are also listed there. Show are always hung the Saturday afternoon before the first date the show is open, starting at 1 pm, almost always finished by 4.
REMINDER: Follow Health and Safety Guidelines!
Students are reminded to follow all COVID-19 health and safety guidelines to help keep our community healthy. The guidelines are outlined on Webster’s COVID-19 webpage at: http://www.webster.edu/covid19/healthtips.html.
Before coming to class: One important requirement for all students and faculty is that everyone must complete a Daily Health Screening before coming to class (details at the link above).
In-class expectations: The health and safety guidelines include the following:
· Everyone in a classroom will be required to wear a mask/face covering at all times;
· Maintain social distance in classrooms, including with seating and while entering and exiting;
· Food and drink will not be allowed in class;
· Feeling sick? Do not go to class.
NOTE: All Friday sessions will be online using Zoom. See the Zoom tab is WorldClassRoom for the login links. The three Saturday sessions will meet in the May Gallery from 1-4 pm to hang shows, following all safety precautions.
Local gallery shows I hear about will be posted here.James Turrell: Orca (Blue-Red) opens Saturday, March 13th The installation is free to the public and will be on view by appointment only, Thursdays through Saturdays 12 to 5 PM. To schedule a private viewing appointment, visit https://app.squarespacescheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=22203593&appointmentType=20851100. Capacity is 6 people in the installation. Please feel free to bring up to 5 guests with you for your viewing appointment. For the safety of our visitors and staff, we ask that all guests over the age of 2 years old wear a mask during their visit. projects+exhibitions, 4568 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, MO “Listen, Look: A Reconciliatory Journey Through Black Grief and Joy” is a multimedia exhibit that centers the art praxes of Black St. Louis artists as they grapple with the complex gravities of grief and joy in their lives. The artists will be creating within, and speaking from, this emotion-ridden duality; it is our obligation to listen, to look, and to ask questions of ourselves as we engage what they say. Within that self-interrogation lies the potential for productive dialogue and action. The exhibit, then, also seeks to tap into the combined power of listening and looking with the intention to transform audience members from passive onlookers into active witnesses. Both Sides Now The group exhibition features artworks that are evocative of our uniquely dichotomous moment, in which the simplest forms of intimacy are as elusive as inestimable existential concerns. Featured artists include El Anatsui, Donald Baechler, Louise Bourgeois, Michael Byron, Louis Cameron, John Rogers Cox, Barbara Crane, Tom Friedman, Richard Hughes, Terence Koh, Ben McLaughlin, Marilyn Minter, Sierra Pecheur, Julian Schnabel, Louis Stettner, Chloe West and Kehinde Wiley. Public Hours at projects+gallery: Thursdays through Saturdays, 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM. Scheduled private appointments will be available. The exhibition will remain on view through March 13, 2021. The Philip Slein Gallery presents three artists each utilizing a graphic structure of his own composition, each seemingly rigid yet each eloquently revealing the power of color and emotion that belies the rigidity of their construction. I upcoming exhibition and two current projects on view at Laumeier Sculpture Park: THE FUTURE IS PRESENT: ART AND GLOBAL CHANGE February 6 - May 9, 2021. The exhibition examines the intersections between art and some of the world’s most pressing issues: climate change, environmental crisis and the related global repercussions. Artists include Daniel Canogar, Hannah Chalew, Jake Chapman, Daniel Fishkin, Pete Froslie, Jenny Kendler, Van McElwee, Elias Sime, Calum Stirling and Marina Zurkow. ODILI DONALD ODITA: FROM PERIPHERY TO CENTER
On view through March 14, 2021,
Laumeier Sculpture Park / Jeske Sculpture Park VAN MCELWEE: TIME FORK, On view through May 9, 2021. Van McElwee: Time Fork. McElwee has created an Augmented Reality environment contemplating choices and possibilities, each choice crafting a new world. Created from a topographical drone mapping of Laumeier, imagined structures are placed virtually within the landscape at Laumeier. McElwee’s interactive application incorporates both sculpture and the natural landscape that offer an alternative Laumeier experience for visitors using their hand-held personal devices. Time Fork, organized as a walking tour of the Park viewed through the lens of technology, entertains a playful fiction: roughly a thousand years ago, time branched to create a parallel world. In McElwee’s installation he will use Augmented Reality to reveal features of a settlement that exists in that parallel or even future world, overlapping what we know as Laumeier Sculpture Park. Green Door Art Gallery in Webster Groves Presents “It’s Eclectic,” March 3 – May 1, 2021.
Green Door Art Gallery proudly presents “It’s Eclectic”, a multi-media and multi-style art exhibit, featuring Pysanky by Katherine Alexander, acrylic portraits by Daniel Bess, acrylic mandala paintings by Lynn Carter, wooden sculpture, benches and frames by Mindy Cooke, and abstract acrylic and mixed media paintings by Cara Harjes. The exhibit is free and open to the public. The artwork in this exhibit will be available for sale March 3 – May 1, 2021 Remnants is presented in the Art Saint Louis Gallery from January 16 to February 17, 2021. The Art Saint Louis Gallery is free and open to the public Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. and Saturday 9 a.m.-2 p.m. and all are welcome. NOTE: The exhibit will be open six days a week to the public beginning January 16, however due to the ongoing pandemic & global health crisis, we will not be hosting a reception for this exhibit. |
Week 1 (1/15). (See WorldClassroom for Zoom link.) Introductions, survey of the gallery and workroom, what will be involved, schedules and expectations. Note: Pass/Fail option is available, but you should declare that you choose that option by the end of the second week of class.
The gallery web site is (temporarily, we hope) not working after the big Webster site revision. So here are the shows for this spring:
Annual Juried Exhibition
29 January - 5 March 2021
VIRTUAL Reception for the Photographers and Awards Friday, 5 February, 5-6 pm
Call for Work (deadline Thursday, 21 January)
Webster Community Arts Photography Exhibition
12 March - 9 April 2021
VIRTUAL Reception for the Photographers Friday, 19 March, 5-6 pm
Seven Emerging Photographers
16 April - July 2021
VIRTUAL Reception for the Photographers Friday, 16 April, 5-6 pm
Week 2 (1/22). Visiting other galleries during the semester, in person or virtually, and short (at least two, approximately one page each) reaction papers to what you find. The first reaction paper is due Friday October 23rd. Current gallery openings are listed at http://stlopenings.blogspot.com. There is at least one that is planned in person, at Bruno David Gallery. Some things to consider as you prepare to write a reaction paper:
Here are additional places where you might find information about the St. Louis arts scene, and what they say about themselves. (Do you agree?)
Start thinking about a topic for a research paper. Among the places you might look for ideas is Global Museum, Art Review (free web magazines), and the Center for the Future of Museums. I know that you won't plagiarize, and here are some resources to help you avoid i.t (Topic and proposed sources are due Friday October 30th.)
Week 3 (Saturday 1/30 instead of Friday). Meet in the gallery at 1:00 to hang the next show. Don't forget your mask
Week 4 (2/5). VIRTUAL reception tonight 5-6 (4:30-6:30) pm –details to follow.
Week 5 (2/12). Running an opening under non-pandemic conditions: pre-planning, setup (gallery space as well as reception), the opening itself. Details and checklists. And then there is adapting to the pandemic.
Week 6 (2/19). Article to read: How to view art. This is the topic of today's discussion.
Week 7 (2/26). First reaction paper due. The press release. How to get your message out: hints for success, mistakes to avoid. Local networking, building your audience, effective advertising. The RAC Marketing Toolbox is worth exploring for solid techniques and media contacts. Getting a release to the Post-Dispatch.
Week 8 (Saturday 3/6 instead of Friday). Meet in the gallery at 1:00 to hang the next show. Don't forget your mask
Spring Break
Week 9 (3/19). VIRTUAL reception tonight 5-6 (4:30-6:30) pm –details to follow.
Week 10 (3/26). Designing publications such as postcards, minicatalog and publicity poster, working with the printer, calculating number needed to print, etc.
Week 11 (4/2). Reviewing portfolios, selecting exhibitions, booking shows.
Week 12 (Saturday 4/9 instead of Friday). Meet in the gallery at 1:00 to hang the next show. Don't forget your mask
Week 13 (4/16).VIRTUAL reception tonight 5-6 (4:30-6:30) pm –details to follow.
Week 14 (4/23). Networking: working with professional organizations such as the American Alliance of Museums, the Association of Midwest Museums, the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries, the Women's Caucus for Art and its St. Louis chapter, as well as with photography publications (such as The Photo Review and Photograph) and other photography spaces, such as Blue Sky Gallery in Oregon. Keep in mind that the Emerson Library is building a collection of photo show announcement cards and catalogs; they are in the fourth floor stacks at TR650 Catalog. Joining the "Photo-Jobs" list.Assessment.
Maintaining a web site, including scanning and optimizing images, updating pages, checking links.
Week 15 (4/30). Second reaction paper due. Course evaluations are now online. Time will be set aside at the beginning of class today to complete them. (You should have already received information about this.) The confidential site to access the online course evaluations is Webster’s MyCoursEval website . Students will use their Connections user name and password to access the course evaluation form. Please bring an appropriate electronic device with you to class (e.g. laptop, tablet or smartphone).
How Are Art Galleries Adapting to Our Digital World?
Calls for Work: what to look for, what to avoid, how to find them and how to issue your own. Some places to look for them include:
The (new) Lens Culture Project Review. They say, "Curious about the gallery world? Looking for feedback on your photography? We’re offering in-depth, written reviews of your photography by fine art and gallery professionals on how to advance your practice, present your work to galleries, and more.
Week 16 (5/7). Final