M13 Post

Video Reviews 

Philippe de Montebello and The Metropolitan Museum of Art 

Art curators help explain works of art and place them in a specific context of time and place. Philippe de Montebello was the art director of The MET for 31 years until 2008. The museum opened with 174 European paintings. However, under his leadership the museum's collection grew to represent all cultures and eras over the years. 

Q&A with MoMA Curator Anne Umland 

MoMA was founded in 1929 on the belief that the art of the present is just as worthy of the attention of famous works of the past. I learned multiple aspects of art curation in this video such as:

• A monographic, or retrospective, exhibition solely contain works from a single individual. They are often used today to highlight the career of a deceased artist
• Major historical exhibitions generally take 2-3 years to open to the public 
• A core group of 20 people are usually involved in developing an exhibition (a curatorial team, registrar department who take works from storage and bring them to the floor, art conservators, educators and editors to help with content labeling, exhibition designers, lighting engineers)
• The curator provides context to an artwork and how it's been displayed in the past while collaborating with the exhibition designer who suggests best design options   

The Lowdown on Lowbrow: West Coast Pop Art 

The post WWII period, or space age, comic books, Cold War imagery, the American consumer culture, hot rods, and suburbia all heavily influenced this movement. Before the '60s there was a great distinction between the categories of a fine artist and a graphic or commercial artist. A lot of the major artists of this movement started as sign painters. Psychedelic rock poster artists began receiving quite some attention in San Fransisco in the '60s. 

Lowbrow art challenged the notion that high culture requires a certain degree of intelligence to understand an artwork and remained as an overlooked movement compared to high art. However, in recent years the movement began to see interest and gained popularity.  

In Relation to My Art Exhibition Project 

The videos relate to the creation of my project. Philippe de Montebello and Anne Umland explained the importance of selecting artworks that help tell the story of the given theme of an exhibition. With that said, it's important to have an open mind while looking at works to include, for they might not be your favorite, but they are key in demonstrating the theme. 

I liked the films. Anne Umland and Philippe de Montebello explained the importance of curating works from different art movements for a single show. The Lowbrow film further stressed the importance of having an open mind when selecting works and there's more to chose from than the traditional highbrow works.