ARTH 5330: The Artist as Collector

University of Connecticut
Spring 2020, Wednesday 3:30-6:15 pm, ART B222

Instructor: Amanda A. Douberley, Ph.D. amanda.douberley@uconn.edu

O ffice hours: Wednesday 1-3 pm (by appointment)

Description & objectives: This graduate seminar examines the collecting practices of
modern and contemporary artists. We explore the aesthetic and psychological dimensions
of collecting, and consider the ways that objects can influence and reflect their owners’
work. Topics include cabinets of curiosities and the role of collecting in knowledge
production; the impact of imperialism, colonialism, and consumer culture; collecting
environments; and theories of collecting. Students will also have an opportunity to analyze
their own collecting habits. Weekly meetings are informed by readings from scholarly
articles and book chapters, supplemented with short primary texts by artists and theorists.
Class sessions are student-driven and discussion-based, with a number of visits to sites
outside the classroom.

Assignm ents with percentage of course grade:

Class participation & discussion board 50%
In-class presentation 30%
Final project 20%

Written assignments and in-class presentations are designed to improve your writing and
critical thinking skills. All assignments must be completed to receive a passing grade.

Course M aterials: Assigned readings will be available as PDFs through OneDrive.

Participation and discussion board: You should come to class every week prepared
to pose questions about the assigned readings. To facilitate class discussion, you are
required to post your response to assigned prompts on the Blackboard course discussion
board. Your post should address the set of questions contained in the prompt. You are
required to cite at least one assigned reading in your post. Also, you may respond to the
posts by other students that precede yours. Each post should be at least 250 words (or one
typed, double-spaced page). You will have an opportunity to expand on your ideas during
discussion in class. Posts submitted after 9am on the due date will be considered late.

In-class presentation: You will be asked to give one in-class presentation on the
collecting practice of a single artist. You will choose an artist from the list provided by your
instructor. Your presentation and related discussion should last 20 to 30 minutes and
include images as well as discussion questions that connect with course themes.
Presentations will take place in class during Weeks 6 through 12 (February 26 to April 8).

Final project: You will work together as a group to plan a 21st century cabinet of
curiosities. The form this presentation will take is TBD. It is due in class on April 29. In
addition to an in-class presentation and discussion, you will be required to submit a 1,000
to 1,250-word (4-5 page) statement that summarizes and analyzes your contribution to the
project in relation to course themes.

For all course assignments, please write in complete sentences. In-text citations or
footnotes are acceptable and required when paraphrasing or quoting unique sources; the
same citation method must be used throughout the document. Not doing so violates
“academic honesty” and can result in your failing this course. For a quick guide to
citations, see https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

Course Policies
Attendance: Students are expected to attend class regularly and on time. Attendance is
a minimum requirement and is not part of your course grade. If a student needs to miss
class with reasonable cause, it is the student’s responsibility to contact the instructor to
receive instruction for how to make up for the missed class. Students officially enrolled in a
course will be given credit only if they have responded adequately to the standards and
requirements set by the instructor.

Please be on tim e! When you are late to class, you disrupt discussion and miss
important information. You are required to ask for permission if you need to leave class
early for any reason and should avoid scheduling appointments during class time.

Rem em ber to power down. Electronic devices such as cellphones and pagers must be
turned off and put away before class begins. Laptops, tablets, and e-readers may be used
ONLY to take notes and to view course readings. The use of digital devices in class to
perform non-class related work will not be tolerated. Any student who chooses to ignore
this policy will be asked to leave class and will be marked absent.

Students with disabilities: The University of Connecticut is committed to protecting

the rights of individuals with disabilities and assuring that the learning environment is
accessible. If you anticipate or experience physical or academic barriers based on disability
or pregnancy, please let me know immediately so that we can discuss options. Students
who require accommodations should contact the Center for Students with Disabilities,
Wilbur Cross Building Room 204, (860) 486-2020 or http://csd.uconn.edu/.
Course Schedule

Week 1
January 22
Introduction

Week 2
January 29
Perspectives on Collecting
Guest presentation: Alison Paul, Assoc. Professor of Illustration/Animation

Walter Benjamin, “Unpacking My Library,” Illuminations (1931; Schocken Books, 1969), pp.
59-67.

Jean Baudrillard, “The System of Collecting,” in John Elsner and Roger Cardinal, eds., The
Cultures of Collecting (1968; Harvard UP, 1994), pp. 7-24.

Werner Muensterberger, “First Possessions,” Collecting: An Unruly Passion (Princeton UP,

1994), pp. 14-24.

Week 3
February 5
Cabinets of Curiosity

Patrick Mauriès, Cabinets of Curiosities (London: Thames & Hudson, 2002), pp. 7-67.

Ruth Erickson, “Into the Field,” in Erickson, ed., Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-
Century Naturalist (New Haven: Yale UP, 2017), pp. 12-69.

Week 4
February 12
NO CLASS – College Art Association Annual Conference

Week 5
February 21*
FIELD TRIP – Wadsworth Athenaeum

Week 6
February 26
Collecting and M odern Art
Student presentation: Henri Matisse’s textiles
Patricia Leighten, “The White Peril and L’Art nègre: Picasso, Primitivism, and
Anticolonialism,” Art Bulletin 72:4 (Dec 1990), pp. 609-630.

Peter Stepan, Picasso’s Collection of African and Oceanic Art (New York: Prestel, 2006), pp.
8-15, 90-116.

Week 7
March 4
Surrealism
Student presentation: Frida Kahlo and El Arte popular

Katharine Conley, “What Makes a Collection Surrealist? Twentieth-Century Cabinets of

Curiosities in Paris and Houston,” Journal of Surrealism and the Americas 6:1 (2012), pp. 1-
23.

Julia Kelly, “The Found, the Made and the Functional: Surrealism, Objects and Sculpture,”
in Anna Dezeuze and Kelly, ed., Found Sculpture and Photography from Surrealism to
Contemporary Art (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 39-57.

Week 8
March 11
Assem blage
Student presentation: Arman and African tribal art

Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, “Joseph Cornell’s Explorations: Art on File,” in Joseph

Cornell/Marcel Duchamp…In Resonance (Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Cantz, 1998), pp. 221-
243.

Alex J. Taylor, ed., In Focus: Black Wall 1959 by Louise Nevelson, Tate Research
Publication, 2016,
https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/in-focus/black-wall-louise-nevelson

Week 9
March 18
NO CLASS – SPRING BREAK

Week 10
March 25
Pop
Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, “Annihilate/Illuminate: Claes Oldenburg’s Ray Gun and Mouse
Museum,” in Achim Hochdörfer with Barbara Schröder, eds., Claes Oldenburg: The Sixties
(New York: Prestel, 2012), pp. 216-273.

The Mouse Museum/The Ray Gun Wing: Two Collections/Two Buildings by Claes
Oldenburg (Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1977).

John W. Smith, “Andy Warhol’s Art of Collecting”; Pamela Allara, “Please Touch: Warhol’s
Collection as Alternative Museum”; Michael Lobel, “Warhol’s Closet”; and Jonathan
Flatley, “Liking Things,” in Smith, ed., Possession Obsession: Andy Warhol and Collecting
(Pittsburgh: Andy Warhol Museum, 2002), pp. 14-21, 40-48, 65-74, 94-103.

Week 11
April 1
Collecting Environm ents
Student presentation: Hanne Darboven

Lisa Stone, “Shelf Life” and Lisa Wainwright, “The Chosen Objects: Roger Brown’s
Cosmology of Things,” in Roger Brown: Virtual Still Lifes (Chicago: School of the Art
Institute of Chicago, 2019), pp. 6-25, 30-43.

Explore the Roger Brown Study Collection website:

https://www.saic.edu/t4/academics/libraries-special-collections/roger-brown/

Donald Judd Spaces (New York: Judd Foundation, 2020).

Marianne Stockebrand, “The Making of Two Works: Donald Judd’s Installations at the
Chinati Foundation,” Chinati Foundation, last accessed March 18, 2020.
https://chinati.org/pdf/making2works.pdf.

Explore the Judd Foundation and Chinati Foundation websites:

https://juddfoundation.org/
https://chinati.org/

Week 12
April 8
The Artist and the Archive
Student presentation: Theaster Gates

Ingrid Schaffner, “Digging Back into ‘Deep Storage’” and “Deep Storage”; Matthias
Winzen, “Collecting – so normal, so paradoxical”; Geoffrey Batchen, “Archive - The Art of
Archiving”; Sheryl Conkelton, “Dialectic - The Deceptive Play of the Individual, or In the
Archive”; Susan Buck-Morss, “Passages - Researching Walter Benjamin’s Passagen-Werk”;
and Susan Stewart, “Wunderkammer - An After and a Before,” in Schaffner and Winzen,
eds., Deep Storage: Collecting, Storing, and Archiving in Art (New York: Prestel, 1998), pp.
10-31, 46-49, 125-128, 222-225, 291-295.

Week 13
April 15
The Artist and the M useum

Raid the Icebox Now. Last modified December 16, 2019. Accessed 2 April 2020.
http://publications.risdmuseum.org/raid-icebox-now

Week 14
April 22
NO CLASS – MFA Studio Art talks via Zoom

Week 15
April 29
Final presentations/reflections on the semester