Bard Travel Program, May 18–27, 2014
As in 2011, 2012, and 2013, this
year’s destination was London. Nineteen MA students concluded their first year
of classes with this trip to gain insight into the challenges and diversity of
curatorial practice in one of the great centers of museum culture. Local
curators took students through an array of historic houses, galleries,
conservation labs, and storage rooms. Another highlight of the trip was a
special event held at the Royal College of Art, where the group met with
students and faculty of the V&A/RCA MA program in the History of Design.
The trip was organized and led by Professors Amy Ogata and François Louis with
the assistance of PhD students Joyce Denney and Sonya Abrego.
Our trip began in the Victoria
and Albert Museum’s East Asian Galleries with presentations by Professor Louis
and Joyce Denney. We then moved to the new Dr. Susan Weber Gallery of
Furniture, where curator Nick Humphrey explained the installation’s concept,
design, and novel interactive technology. In the afternoon, curator of designs,
Matthew Storey, took us behind the scenes to the Print Room to discuss a
selection of twenty prints and drawings from the fifteenth to the twenty-first
century. Later in the day we met with the heads of the RCA design history
program, Jane Pavitt and Christine Guth. Three RCA students and four BGC
students gave brief presentations of their research and scholarly interests
before we all moved to an informal reception.
Our next day focused on histories
of private and public collecting (notably of Chinese ceramics and Mediterranean
antiquities) at the British Museum, Percival David Collection, and Sir John
Soane’s Museum. Students came face to face with significant artifacts they had
learned about in the Survey course. Soane curators Stephen Astley and John
Bridges took us on a memorable visit behind the scenes to see not only the
collections and a selection of Robert Adam drawings, but also the ongoing
renovation of the museum. We also discussed the unique conservation issues of
this site with conservator Jane Wilkinson.
Day three was devoted to a
variety of presentation modes of middle and lower-class homes. We started with
the National Trust-owned Goldfinger House, a unique Modernist home designed by
architect Ernö Goldfinger in 1939 for himself and his family. With surprising
design details that were groundbreaking at the time and still feel fresh today,
the house also contains the Goldfingers’ collection of modern art and
innovative furniture. In the afternoon we moved from Hampstead to Spitalfields
to the Dennis Severs house. Intended as a sensory experience of the home of a
local family, this theatrical reenactment of history presented an intense
contrast to museums, and yet was closely related to them. The day concluded
with a visit to the nearby Geffrye Museum which illustrates English middle and
working-class life through a series of period rooms.
The next day we left London for
Buckinghamshire to see Waddesdon Manor, the former Rothschild mansion. BGC
faculty member and former curator Ulrich Leben, along with curator Rachel Boak,
gave a scintillating tour through the entire building with its rich collection
of eighteenth-century furnishings, discussing curatorial challenges and
highlights. The visit also included a walk through the gardens with garden
curator Sophie Piebenga, and a visit of the new Rothschild archive and library,
an environmentally sustainable passive building also used to display British
contemporary art.
Friday morning was again devoted
to the V&A with an extraordinary visit through the new textile storage
facility and conservation lab at Blythe House at Olympia in London. Edwina
Ehrman, chief textile curator, and Suzanne Smith, the center’s manager, talked
about the thinking behind the structures while showing us a number of
impressive artifacts. The afternoon was devoted to two contrasting
nineteenth-century artists’ house museums. Daniel Robbins, senior curator of
Leighton House, discussed the challenges of presenting a house without original
furnishings, while we experienced quite the opposite at Linley Sambourne House.
The trip ended with visits to
contemporary design exhibitions at the Design Museum, the historical displays
at the Museum of London, and a tour through Saint Paul’s Cathedral.
In sum, this was an intense and
highly successful trip. The students each gave a well-prepared brief
presentation on sites or objects of their choice, and all the curators were not
only eloquent and passionate, but also extremely generous with their time and
knowledge.
—Professor François Louis
