1. Collaborating with Artists
in
Museums of Contemporary Art
Sarah A. Kimmerle
SFSU, Museum Studies
sarahkimmerle@yahoo.com
www.linkedin.com/in/sarahkimmerle

2. Name the Art Work
One of the images below is an artwork, the other is a museum program.
Can you tell the difference?
Museum Program
MAH, in-gallery opinion board for Work in Progress (2013)
Art Work
Ted Noten, Drive-thru Photobooth (2010)

3. Name the Art Work
Museum Program
Rubin Museum of Art, “The Dream-Over” where adults are invited
to sleepover in the museum next to an inspirational work (2010)
Art Work
Carl von Hausswolff, Andrew McKenzie and Ulf Bilting, Exchange of
Mental, Physical and Unknown Matter During a Period of Four
Nights (1996)

4. Name the Art Work
Art Work
Jeremy Deller, The Battle of Orgreave Archive: An Inquiry to One is
an Injury to All (2004)
Museum Program
New Museum, exhibition We Who Feel Differently (2011) featuring
the work of Carlos Motta

5. Case Study I: Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz
Work in Progress (December 2012-March 2013) is a museum-wide exhibition
that reveals the artistic process. Here “Beautiful Loser” artist Thomas
Campbell developed a 75 x 12 foot mural in the museum over three months.

6. Case Study III: Middlebrough Institute of Modern Art
Museummaker connected jewelry artists Lin Cheung and Laura Potter with a
mima patron, Charlotte Wood. Through this mima sponsored project, Wood
commissioned and now partially owns an original piece of jewelry.

7. Case Study II: Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The Mark Bradford Project was a nine month residency program with L.A.-
based artists, Mark Bradford. Bradford mentored students from Chicago
public schools and, along with an MCA staff working group, mounted an
exhibition of student work.

8. Audience Involvement Spectrum
SPECTATING
•Claire Twomey's
Monument
•Ines Tartler's
Autogarage
•Mark Bradford's The
Mark Bradford Project
((Re)Connect student
exhibition)
ENHANCED
ENGAGEMENT
•Thomas Campbell's
Work in Progress
•Joseph Beuys' 100 Days
of Free International
University
•Paul Chan's Waiting for
Godot (play & guest
lectures)
•Jeremey Deller's Battle
of Orgreave (archive &
exhibition)
•Tania Bruguera's
Catedra Arte de
Conducta (lectures)
CROWD
SOURCING
•Ted Noten's Drive-Thur
Photobooth
•Paul Chan's Waiting
for Godot (shadow
fund)
•Jeremey Deller's Battle
of Orgreave (oral
history)
CO-CREATION
•Mark Bradford's The
Mark Bradford Project
•Mark Bradford's
Mithra
•Mah Rana's Meanings
and Attachments
•Tania Bruguera's
Catedra Arte de
Conducta (social
intervention
performances)
AUDIENCE-AS-
ARTIST
•Lisa Cheung and Larura
Potter's Pas de Deux
•Jeremey Deller's Battle
of Orgreave (re-
enactment)

9. New Museology: Theory and Practice
Theory
• Emerged in late 1980s
• Museums are political spaces
• Museum are identity-shaping
spaces
• Through exhibition, museums
create hierarchies and spectacle
• Theoretical models: Temples,
Forums, Contact Zones or Invited
Spaces
• Main contributors: Peter Vergo,
Stephen Weil, Sharon MacDonald,
Tony Bennett, Donald Preziosi, John
Cotton Dana, Clifford James and
Fiona Kaplan
Implications on Practice
• Visitor Studies Association Founded
in 1990
• Understanding of “museum
experience”
• Understanding of the visitor
• Multi-modal, visitor-focused
programs and exhibitions
• Long-term investment in
community engagement
• Restructured organizational charts
• Main contributors: John Falk, Lynn
Dierking, Edward Gardner, Alan
Brown, Mark O’Neil, Kathleen
McLean, Mark Moore and
American Association of Museums

10. Participatory Art: Theory and Practice
Theory
• Early forms of Participatory Art
constructed situations or
“alternative realities” that
reveal power dynamics in
everyday life
• However, in this parallel
platform power dynamics
were often replicated not
altered
• Co-creation of work with
audience is solution to this
ethical dilemma
Implications on Practice
• New art forms: social practice,
socially-engaged art,
community-based art,
experimental communities,
dialogic art, collaborative art
• Art is socially inclusive
• Art is part of life or functional
• Practices produces an art
project, not an art work
• Artist becomes educator

11. Recommendations
1. Museums must embrace Social Practice and
Participatory Art
2. Museums must continue to support progressive
forms of art
3. Support curatorial research addressing aesthetic
and ethical questions of social practice
4. Mirror external collaboration in internal
organizational structure
5. Develop a culture and practice of reflection