PROGRAM INFORMATION

Ruth Ezra

Tuesdays, 3:30-5:00 p.m., using a Zoom link

July 14, July 28, August 11, August 25 (N.B. every other week)

rezra@fas.harvard.edu

DESCRIPTION

Are you a culture vulture itching to fly the coop? In these sessions, you’ll have the opportunity to stretch your museum legs without leaving the house. We’ll travel from Vienna to Los Angeles, New York to Boston, as we experience four different exhibitions and explore four innovative museum websites. Our virtual tour will take us from the painted masterpieces of “Pieter Bruegel the Elder” at the Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM) to the graphic wonders the Getty Center assembled for “Michelangelo: Mind of the Master.” As we dig into both displays, we’ll use interactive online resources to learn about the technical processes behind Renaissance painting and drawing. After LA, we'll catch a red eye to New York for “Gerhard Richter: Painting After All,” a landmark retrospective presented by the Met Breuer (formerly home to the Whitney Museum) that was open for just nine days in March. For our final week, we'll return home to Boston, where we'll take in "Boston's Apollo: Sargent and McKeller" at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. As a point of comparison, we'll explore "Posing Modernity," a groundbreaking exhibition on the black female figure in the history of art that opened in 2018 at the Wallach Gallery, Columbia University and traveled to the Musée d'Orsay in 2019.

In all four sessions, we’ll weigh the merits and drawbacks of engaging with art on the screen. We'll also pause to discuss where museums go from here at a galvanizing moment for change across the arts sector.

Note: After each chat, all resources and links discussed in class will be accessible on this site.