Museum professionals are experts in art history, but may be newer to the nuances of buying art. A course aims to bridge that gap.
Many major museum curators have Ph.D.s, and yet some are going back to school this month during an art fair in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
Last year, the European Fine Art Foundation, the nonprofit organization that puts on the fair, held its first Curator Course. The coming second edition will have 10 participants from museums all over the world, including the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Hong Kong Palace Museum and the Frans Hals Museum, based in the nearby Dutch city of Haarlem.
The five-day course — unusual for an art fair — is intended for what TEFAF calls “emerging” curators. It includes lectures, panel discussions and mentoring sessions on topics ranging from insuring artworks to negotiating and fund-raising to acquire them, as well as a peek into TEFAF’s process for vetting objects. The curators’ museums pick up their expenses for the trip; there is no charge for the course itself.
The idea is that although curators have expertise about the importance and history of the objects in their charge, some savvy about the buying and selling process is necessary when it comes to making acquisitions for their museums.
“Most curators don’t have the opportunity to get involved in the market and learn about it,” said Paul van den Biesen, TEFAF’s head of museums and collectors. “We wanted to bridge that gap.”
Van den Biesen conceived of the course. “We had an informal dinner after one of the board meetings,” he said. “Someone asked, ‘What would your dream for TEFAF be?’ And mine was to start a course for curators.”
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content
