Art in Focus: Installation, Interpretation, Narration
Art in Focus is an academic initiative for members of the Yale Center for British Art Student Guide Program, through which students are introduced to every aspect of exhibition practice. Students intensify their engagement with the Center’s collections, strengthen their research skills, and test writing in new formats. Student curators select objects for exhibition, write text panels and object labels, and make decisions about installation.
Art in Focus: Installation, Interpretation, Narration, the fourth exhibition in the Art in Focus initiative, explored how the text accompanying works of art may affect the narratives generated by the objects. Through interpretive materials, members of the Student Guide Program transformed a pre-existing installation created by the Department of Paintings and Sculpture in the Center’s Long Gallery. Students selected a new theme for the installation, which included a fifteenth-century alabaster relief carving and works by William Blake (1757–1827) and John Martin (1789–1854). Their introductory panels and wall labels, installed in conjunction with pre-existing interpretive materials, emphasize the ability of the same works to tell multiple stories.
Credits
The student curators of this exhibition were Sarah Armitage (PC '12), Paulina Arnold (BR '12), Jessica Dilworth (BK '11), Tanya Grigoroglou (CC '10), Grace Kim (TC '11), Yinshi Lerman-Tan (MC '11), Danielle Tomson (SY '12), Leo Wallo (TC '11), and Julie Zhu (MC '12). They worked under the direction of Angus Trumble, the Center’s Curator of Paintings; Linda Friedlaender, Curator of Education; and Jennifer Kowitt, Postgraduate Research Associate in the Education department.