An international conference to be held at the University of Melbourne on 12 (evening), 13 and 14 March 2010, interrogating the practice of art curatorship in Australia now, and in the recent past. The program is conceived in celebration of twenty years of art curatorship at the University of Melbourne. It has been organized in conjunction with the launch of the initiative to establish the Australian Institute of Art History at the University of Melbourne.

Keynote speaker

Michael Brand, Director, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005-2010

Miegunyah Visiting Fellow, 2010.

Symposium speakers include:
Anthony Bond; Joanna Bosse; Jane Clark; Alison Carroll; Rebecca
Coates; Charlotte Day; Max Delany; David Elliott; Juliana Engberg;
Stephen Gilchrist; Alexi Glass-Kantor; Charles Green; Alison Inglis;
Jeff Kahn; Rachel Kent; Frances Lindsay; Ruth McDougall; Kyla
McFarlane; Christopher Marshall; Hannah Matthews; Karen Quinlan;
Patrick Pound; Jason Smith; Daniel Thomas and Lucina Ward.

You can download the full program as a pdf here.

What are the defining characteristics of art curatorship in Australia? How does the experience of living in Australia shape professional practice in our art museums? This symposium will interrogate the central components of a curator’s working life: the creation and development of collections, the performative act of the exhibition, and its interpretation.

The conference will consist of keynote addresses and sessions of three 30-minute papers to be followed by a convenor-led discussion with questions. Sessions include the following titles:
• Curators and Collections
• Alternative modes of Curatorship
• Curators and Spaces
• Biennales and beyond
• From Institutional to Independent

This symposium has been jointly convened by Associate Professor Alison Inglis, Course Co-ordinator, Master of Art Curatorship program, University of Melbourne and Rebecca Coates, Independent curator and lecturer, Associate Curator Australian Centre for Contemporary Art and PhD candidate, University of Melbourne.

All sessions will be held in the Elisabeth Murdoch Lecture Theatre, The University of Melbourne (Parkville).

For program and details, see: http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/art-history/

Enquiries: Associate Professor Alison Inglis, email: asi@unimelb.edu.au, tel: 8344 7448

Both events are free of charge, but please register by sending your contact details, indicating whether you will be attending the public lecture and/or the symposium, to: Dr Meaghan Wilson Anastasios – email: mewi@unimelb.edu.au