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Critical viewing of the Art Gallery of Ontario. Arts Essay

Essay Instructions:

i already write 500 words, 1100 in total, i place the order for 825 words. you need to corrected grammar, spelling, or citation formatting of my part and write the Part2 of the assignment. have to cite two reading i uploaded!
if you have question about the part 2, like you see the photo of work to show how they presented in the galleries, i have the photo, message me as soon as possible.

 

FAH 101/2019

Essay #2

 

Assume a Position! Critical Viewing of the Art Gallery of Ontario

Carol Duncan and Allan Wallach’s “The Universal Survey Museum.”

 

 

Michael Snow (Canadian), Walking Women (entrance, AGO)

 

Format: 1100 words. double-spaced, 12-point font, standard margins.

 

Due:  Thursday November 21, 2019 at 5:00pm

  • Sign and check all the boxes on the Academic Integrity form, sign & attach as a doc to your essay.
  • Name your file in this format: i.e. Wang_045938_AGOEssay
  • Upload on Quercus in DOC or DOCX format.

 

Components of the Assignment:

  • Reading 1: Carol Duncan and Allan Wallach, “The Universal Survey Museum,” Art History 3 no. 4 (1980):  448-469. (Quercus)
  • Reading 2: Dana Arnold, chapter 3, “Presenting Art History,” in Art History: A Very Short Introduction.
  • Visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto

 

Description of the Assignment: In your essay, you will 1) apply Duncan and Wallach’s arguments to the architecture and spatial arrangement of the Art Gallery of Ontario. 2) evaluate 2 specific installations (see list below) in the museum as evidence of the AGO’s responsiveness to racial/national/indigenous/feminist/non-Western critiques of the “universal museum” described in Duncan &Wallach’s essay. A successful essay will integrate the two parts of the assignment. 

 

For background on Canada’s history, with reference to its indigenous peoples, and efforts to address historical injustices, see:

 

https://www(dot)cbc(dot)ca/news/entertainment/museums-review-indigenous-representation-1.5101817

 

About the AGO: Founded in 1900, the AGO is a municipal art gallery, funded with public and private funds. Until recently, its collections focused on European and North American art (a survey of “western” art). Ancient art, the arts of Asia, Africa, Latin American, and Australia were not part of its collections for decades. The AGO has been through several building phases, the last of which saw a new façade, additions to the entrance sequence, and a large addition to the back adding an upper floor by Frank Gehry (2008). An important part of the original building is visible inside in the Walker Court, where Frank Gehry also made a visible intervention.

 

Essay Part 1: The Ritual of the AGO. In this part of the essay, evaluate the AGO as an example of a universal survey museum, as analyzed by D & W.  Evaluate the kind of ritual the AGO creates for the viewer by means of the architecture and objects installed in its entrance sequence.

 

  • For Part 1 Analysis of the following elements is required: a) Entrance space with Michael Snow sculpture b) Walker Court and c) Gehry Staircase Spaces (see map of Ground Floor for the spaces in pink).

 

Essay Part 2: What is the AGO’s subject position? In this part of the essay evaluate the AGO’s participation in and redress of implicit ideological positions in specific installations in the museum (see list below) D & W describe the formation of the museum – which was implicitly white, male, and Western – and the enactment of a civilizing process through the history of art. In Part 2, consider whether the AGO is a universal survey museum and whether it has reconsidered the white/western/male narrative characteristic of that museum type’s history. Look for those exclusions, and new inclusions, with attention to how they are presented in 2 of these works of art or galleries:  

 

For part 2, analysis of 2 of the following 6 installations is required:

  • 1. Magical and Talismanic Art in Ethiopia A small one-room temporary exhibition of “medieval art” from Ethiopia (listen to the 5-minute video of a discussion by curators)
  • 2. Gallery 136 “Europe’s Dilemma” (modern art). Who is represented in this gallery? Inclusions and exclusions?
  • 3. Gallery 115 Bronze Crucifix by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1650s) and three photographs by Rebecca Belmore (contemporary), an artist of indigenous descent.
  • 4. Gallery 126 “Canadian Art of the early 1900s”: Specifically Emily Carr, Church in Yuquot Village (1929) and Sonny Assu, Re-Invaders: Digital Intervention of an Emily Carr Painting (2014).
  • 5. Gallery 234 (2nd floor): “Indigenous (Canadian) art II”: Specifically: Kent Monkman The Academy (2008)
  • 6. Gallery 227 Esmaa Mohamoud, A Seat Above the Table (2018)

 

These spaces are marked in green on the map

 

Installations #3-#5 are newly acquired works by indigenous artists. The arts of the indigenous peoples of this land were collected by the Royal Ontario Museum for their “ethnographic” collections (alongside natural history specimens), rather than by the AGO, an “art museum”. The AGO’s collections were primarily European and North American painting until relatively recently, when new geographical regions and the arts of the indigenous peoples of Canada began to be actively collected.

 

For context about the indigenous peoples of Canada and the Truth and Reconciliation Committee’s 2015 articles that inform the museum’s installations see:

https://www(dot)thecanadianencyclopedia(dot)ca/en/article/aboriginal-people

 

https://www(dot)cbc(dot)ca/news/entertainment/museums-review-indigenous-representation-1.5101817

 

https://en(dot)wikipedia(dot)org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commission_of_Canada

 

 

How to proceed:

 

READ the Duncan & Wallace essay carefully, taking notes and summarizing its main arguments for yourself. You might write up a page or two of principal points just about the article before turning to the AGO part of the project.

 

READ Chapter 3 of Dana Arnold’s Art History: Very Short Introduction, which concentrates on the institutions of art history, including museums. Because she discusses the history of museums and some contemporary examples, it will help you formulate questions about the AGO. Jot down the questions that you would want to answer at the AGO. Arnold’s chapter makes one aware of the significance of when a museum was founded; what its goals might have been at the time; how its collections come into being. This isn’t a research project -- you are not expected to answer these questions about the AGO. And you are not allowed to use any research materials -– base your essay entirely on the museum itself.

 

STUDY THE PLAN (see PDF in Quercus Module) Before visiting the museum itself in person study the plan of the museum that is also online: https://ago(dot)ca/visit/gallery-map.  Analyze it.  How much space is given to European art, Canadian art, First Nations art, African art, Latin American art, Asian art. How does the AGO comply with the museum types discussed by Duncan and Wallach?

 

Essay Sample Content Preview:

Critical viewing of the Art Gallery of Ontario
Student Name
Student Number
Professor
Teacher Assistant
The appreciation of art requires more than an analysis, comprehension, and critique of individual art pieces. It also requires an understanding of how each piece relates to one another in a limited space as well as how other external aspects (i.e., lighting, descriptions, and people) interacts with one another in order to form a holistic approach that constitutes the totality of art. This idea of a holistic approach could easily be seen in museums. Museums (and their exhibits) are created in such a way that each element or piece are fitted perfectly with one another in order to ensure the most satisfying viewer experience. As stated by Duncan and Wallach, “For the most people in western society, the very notion of art itself is inconceivable without the museum”. Accordingly, this article would focus on how art pieces could be appreciated using this kind of holistic approach by looking at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). To illustrate this, an analysis of the spatial and architectural elements of AGO would first be discussed following an analysis of two (2) installations that could be found in the said museum. All in all, the author believes that through an in-depth analysis of the different elements that can be viewed in the AGO, a richer experience could be gleaned by every viewer.[Duncan, Carol, and Allan Wallach. 1980. "The Universal Survey Museum." Ariel 137 199-212.]
The Art Gallery of Ontario
The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is a municipal gallery located in the downtown area of Toronto, was founded in the 1900s. While there are a variety of the displays and exhibits that could be found in the said location, the AGO’s collection is primarily focused on European and North American Art.
At the entrance of the AGO, an S-shaped stair set in the middle of the antechamber could be found. This stair funnels the flow of people to let people walk from two sides and avoid the effect of visual overcrowding. The said design also also makes a coherent boundary with the stairs at back portion of the same chambers. Behind the stair, an abstract sculpture created by James Carl, entitled Jalousie(pink) (2009) lies equally at the middle of two walls. This sculpture looks like an abstract female torso based from its shape alone. Accordingly, its main color is pink and is decorated with specks of red, yellow and blue creating a vibrant combination of colors that piques that attention of any viewer. The color tone also represents the gender of the sculpture. Behind the Jalousie sculpture is the stairs through the second floor. There are two stairs on each side use the left and right sides are the symmetrical layout giving visitors a sense of calm and safe atmosphere.
After walking through the stairs, a walker court with high, vaulted ceiling and a serpentine stair could easily be seen in the middle. The ceiling was built with transparent glass. This design allows natural light to pass deep into the interior of the building. The natural light coupled with the light yellow wall contributes to the relaxing feeling invoked by the very shape of the chamber. Additionally, the high ceiling also makes the visito...
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