Working with the Collection
Working with the Collection is an interdisciplinary studio course at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design that concentrates on the holdings of an individual museum and the artist’s response to it. Students visit with scientists, curators, and exhibition designers to understand the process of collecting and display. Students work with public and research collections, and create studio work in response to them, culminating in an exhibition at the museum.
Since its inception in 2007, partners have included the Minnesota Science Museum, the Bell Museum of Natural History and the Bakken Museum of Electricity. Through conversations with museum staff, students are exposed to methods of research, collecting, and cataloging, coupled with discourse on the ethics and philosophy of collecting. Students consider how scientific information is communicated, and how to translate it through their own studio practice. Conceptual threads challenge students to think about the specific practices that artists, scientists, and researchers utilize. They decide how these approaches overlap, borrowing methods from each discipline that a single approach might not allow.
The first part of the case study will cover the rationale, planning and administrative aspects of developing and sustaining the course. The second part will cover the specifics of the most recent iteration at the Bell Museum of Natural History at the University of Minnesota. Students approached the semester as an artist residency, taking notes, photographs, and making sketches to use as inspiration for their projects. Additionally, the students collaborated with artist Mark Dion in a postcard exchange.
Vice President of Academic Affairs
Minneapolis College of Art and Design
Karen Wirth is an artist, educator, and the vice president of Academic Affairs at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). Her work explores the relationships between language, objects, and architecture through artist’s books, sculpture, public art, and critical writing. She has received NEA, Bush, McKnight, and Jerome artist fellowships as well as Bush Foundation and American Council on Education leadership fellowships. She co-designed four of the Minneapolis light-rail train stations and the sculptural main staircase at the Open Book Center in Minneapolis. Her work has been shown internationally and is in many collections, including the Museum of Modern Art Library, the Getty Center, Yale University, and the Walker Art Center. She received an MFA in sculpture from the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities and a BFA in art education from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
Visiting Artist, MFA Program
Minneapolis College of Art and Design
Andy DuCett is from Winona, Minn., and received his MFA from the University of Illinois. He currently teaches at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) as a visiting artist in the MFA program. His work has been shown in galleries and museums around the country. He has been published by Artforum, New American Paintings, The Daily Beast, Art Pulse magazine, as well as publications in Toronto, Berlin, Tokyo, and London. He has been commissioned to make work for the Walker Art Center, is part of the permanent collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and is on the curated registry of the Drawing Center in New York. He has upcoming projects at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 2016 and 2017.
