Open call: Summer School in Curatorial Practice

The Summer School in Curatorial Practice will take place during the 57th Venice Biennale. With an interdisciplinary approach, the course provides practical training and experience within museums and exhibition settings. Its international faculty includes curators and museum professionals, artists and critics. The course is designed to increase students understanding of the intellectual and technical tasks of the curator figure. English-taught lectures cover both theoretical and practical topics that go from the history of contemporary visual arts and practices of exhibition-making, to exhibition management. The students will participate in weekly activities, such as artist studio visits, tours of exhibition spaces, networking events and workshops. The program culminates with the set-up of the exhibition and the publication.

The Summer School includes visits of specific art venues all over the city of Venice during the 57th Venice Biennale. A series of selected case studies will offer the students an opportunity to observe the development of contemporary art. The School’s goal is to align these specific theoretical lectures with a practical approach. Besides the theoretical lectures, a series of laboratories and workshops aims to introduce the students to the work of critical text writing, press releases and to structure all the different aspects of publishing. The students will be offered the possibility of gallery training and of setting up, together with one of our tutors, their exhibition in Venice as a final project of the course.

June 5–August 4
The first module
The first module involves 350 contact hours: History of Curatorial Practices; Exhibition Design; Aesthetics and Cultural Theory; Contemporary Art History; Cultural Events Management and Organization; Curating Exhibitions; Fine Arts Management; Fundraising and Marketing/Workshop; Communication Strategies and Artistic Events Promotion/Workshop; New Media and Digital Technologies; Workshop on Critical Writing; Artist studio visits and visits to the 57th Venice Biennale (La Biennale di Venezia)

August 31–September 20
The second module
The second module is dedicated to researching and structuring the final project. The work will be discussed with the curators and project managers during several meetings hold once and twice a week. The weekly overhauls are moments of confrontation and examination of the theoretical and practical work produced by the students through autonomous research. During this period of time the students will have to face practical duties, such as coordinating the artists, managing transportation and insurance policies, promoting and curating the final publication.

September 24–30
The third module
The last part of the course lies in the production of the event. During this period of time all the work concerning the final event will take place. The students will coordinate the arrival and the display of the works of art and supervise all the different aspects related to the event, such as promotion, organization, last details concerning the publication, and the opening. After the presentation to the public, the student will be given the tools to professionally document the event.

Duration and structure
The course has a duration of 450 hours. The participants will develop themes as well as concepts, organization, acquisition, communication and the concrete implementation of their skills together with the course director and international guests (artists, curators, architects, critics, fine arts scientists and publishers of art journals).

You can find the application form and more information about our curatorial program and your stay in Venice here.

The application deadline is March 31, 2017.

The application form must be sent by e-mail before the deadline to: info@corsocuratori.com