I Love Museums

It's a new (school) year!

2008-08-29T20:35:00.004-04:00

Hi everybody and welcome to the wonderful original blog of MSSO.

This blog was run by the class of '08 and as they have graduated and moved on, we have created a new blog at http://www.nyu-msso.blogspot.com so as to preserve all the work they have done and to consolidate the other account we have running.

Please take a look around at their posts, read up on the events and reviews they organized - some pretty exciting stuff that hopefully we will be able to live up to this new year. We plan on hosting a few alumni events over the next several months so hopefully one day you all can meet each other!

Now go on over to our new site where photos are already up of our first event. Come on, don't be shy!

- new webmaster heather

This Friday at the ICP and beyond

2008-02-04T22:05:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone's semester is off to a good start. MSSO has a number of events set for this semester to rally the museum enthusiasts. This Friday, the 8th, the International Center for Photography is open till 8 PM (Map to ICP). And its free from 5-8, whether you're a AAM cardholder, or not. The exhibitions should be terrific - "The Collection of Barbara Bloom" and "Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art." The plan is to convene at the ICP, and then head to nearby Public House at E 41st and Lex. Or just meet at public house around 8, if you prefer.

You can reply to Tom at trh251@nyu.edu to RSVP, and don't forget the MSSO Facebook Group.

Some upcoming MSSO events will include a scavenger hunt (at a museum to be announced) on March 15th, some Whitney Biennial Events (including films and performances), and a trip to First Fridays at the Brooklyn Museum.

Also of note - this is the last week to catch Lawrence Weiner at the Whitney. Show ends Feb. 10th.

Don't let these events slip through your fingers!
Photos: Barbara Bloom

Two Reviews from Jitendra Arora

2007-12-27T14:12:00.000-05:00

The year 2006 marked the commencement of the 70th anniversary of Spanish Civil War. Facing Fascism, the exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York, organized earlier this year, was all about the relatedness of New York and the Spanish Civil War. In the wake of such historic linking, there have been a few other events in New York in the past year, which now begin to seem appropriately timed, for example a suite of four exhibitions at the International Center for Photography, (ICP) along with the exhibition Art and Politics: Posters form the Spanish Civil War, in the Bobst library, New York University (NYU).

The exhibitions at the ICP and Bobst share their broad theme - the Spanish Civil War, and focus - the print propaganda material used during the war, while primarily representing the Republican faction. But they differ in scope of content, choice of sub-themes, their handling, the overall presentation, and the conveyed message. Beside the matters of content and presentation, process and the product, the exhibitions can also be compared with each other in the light of the institutions they come from and therefore the audiences that they draw or relationships they foster with them.

OTHER WEAPONS: PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINT CULTURE DURING THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR, ICP
The exhibition at the ICP forms a part of other exhibitions on photography. The audiences are not only photography aficionados but anyone who might be interested in the subject of Spanish Civil War. The exhibition is drawn form the larger international exhibition ‘Magazines and War 1936-1939: Spanish Civil War Print Culture’. Perhaps conscious of its current exhibiting venue and its mission to interpret the power and evolution of Photography, the exhibition is reconfigured in scope. It includes not just magazines but also posters and ephemera to convey a broader application of the innovative photomontage techniques, which were heavily employed to construct and convey an emotionally and politically charged story of the war.

The strength of the exhibition lies in its choice of six sub-themes, and the efficiency with which it employs the visual and textual material to clearly communicate these along with various nuances of propaganda strategies and material. By also talking about the design and artistry behind some of the powerful images, the exhibition succeeds in effectively underlining the manipulation of photographs for propaganda purposes. Thus, when one walks out of this exhibition into the other three concurrent exhibitions at ICP, one is always aware and conscious of how a particular photograph contains or does not contain
the right ingredients for turning it into a propaganda image. This aspect favors the placement of this exhibition within the other exhibitions of prominent photographic works.

Content: Central to the six themes within the exhibition is the use of the technique of photomontage. We know form an earlier reading on the Pedagogic Misson undertaken by the Second Republic that photographs were often subject to manipulation. Photographers like Val del Omar and Ramon Manendez Pidal used close crops and clever captioning to render potency to their photographs of rural Spaniards. (Mendelson, week 1) At the onset of the war artists took this technique a step further and began combining several images to communicate the intended war narratives.

In this respect, the exhibition mentions the contribution of two artists who were influenced by the work of German photomontage artist John Heartfield, and heavily employed the photmontage technique to create evocative (Republican) commentaries on the war. The artists are Josep Renau and Manuel Monleon Burgos. Two out of six sub-sections of the exhibition are devoted to these artists and their work.

The work of the Valencian artist Monleon is presented in the context of the Valencian anarchist magazine Umbral. Monleon’s cover pages of the issues of Umbral use photomontage renditions of war commentary in rich and vibrant- almost psychedelic-color. Incidentally, even the exhibition derives its name from a series of articles printed in Umbral regarding the potent role of artists as propagandists during the war. Josep Renau, who held a prominent position as the creative director with the Republic in Madrid, is represented no less than an institution in himself with an appropriately grandiose section title: The Polemics of Josep Renau.

Other artists briefly discussed in another section of the exhibition include the team of Barcelona artists - photographer Pere Catala-Pic with his simple but captivating black and white photomontage, and studio photographer Josep Sala whose work follows a simple, symmetric layout of two juxtaposed black and white photographs and minimal text to create another captivating poster. The work of another graphic artist Salvador Ortiga is noticeable in surrealistic covers for AIRE.

Together all the aforementioned artists represent the key production centers of Republican propaganda material viz. Barcelona, Valencia and Madrid. The exhibition also takes our attention to the design nuances of printing and binding in relation to the produce from each of these centers, which in turn goes on to illustrate the larger impact of the war on the centers . E.g. Valencian magazine like Umbral largely used newsprint with economy of print space while Barcelona, last to come under the control of Franco’s forces, could afford expensive metal spiral binding & full page colored illustrations in a
magazine like AIRE.

The insights into the artistry of the posters are valuable and contribute to an understanding of the politics of representation. The remaining three sections take this understanding further by focusing on the human subjects of these propaganda prints,
namely women, children and Moroccan people.

Wars have always been fought on battle fronts by men but the women and children end up being most victimized. The Republican posters used both these factions effectively in their propaganda to gather sympathy and help by showing destitute women and children. The most provocative of the posters are those with the pictures of dead children. However, there is a contrary upbeat depiction of women too, favoring the Republican ideal of liberty and equality of women. Depiction of women’s participation on the front, and later as rear guard, is employed to raise the morale of their forces.

The Moroccan people were another minority that Republican propaganda used, though less frequently than the insurgent propaganda. The two examples presented in the related section of the exhibition show two opposite attitudes towards the Moroccan people employed in the Republican propaganda. One shows them as friends, thus instilling a sense of brotherhood and at the same time encouraging the Moroccans to join Republican forces, and the other showing them as barbaric and greedy enemy, thereby warning Spaniards against the Moroccans.

Together, the choice of the sub-themes helps reveal different extremes of the Republican propaganda by reading into the material with respect to the larger but precise context of its creation. The exhibition realizes the deliberateness of expression and the political motive behind the choice of expression. It highlights that the propaganda material was a work of design.

DISPLAY: The combination of posters displayed on the walls, with magazine covers & spread-outs, a selection of which is displayed on the walls with the posters and others in vitrines placed against the walls, creates an engaging display. The peripheral display makes the best use of allocated space, leaving enough breathing space and yet holding the exhibits cohesively. A simple strategy to paint the wall in parts with shades of gray helps demarcate the different sections of the exhibition. Gray, further helps render a neutral tone to the exhibition in accordance with the tone maintained in the content, which highlights the politics of representation without sounding judgmental. It also helps make
the exhibition room look wider than it is.

SUGGESTION: There is a possibility of adding an audio explanation, wherever possible, for some of the key artworks which could help to substantiate the exhibition text without using any more of the exhibition space.

CONCLUSION: Other Weapons largely succeeds in presenting not just politics through images but also the politics of images.

ART AND POLITICS: POSTERS FROM THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR, NYU
Although it is very tempting to contrast this exhibition with the one just discussed, and even when the exhibition has some obvious flaws, I would like to deliberately refrain from comparing the two. For, not only is the institutional setting very different, the motive of the exhibition too seems to be markedly different. The purpose of this exhibition seems to be displaying a selection of posters from the large archival collection at the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives of the Tamiment library at the NYU for the purpose of illustrating the political undercurrents of the Spanish Civil War, and to perhaps underline political history from the Republican point of view. It does not seem that the exhibition even wished to enter into the realm of politics of representation and to look at the culture of print propaganda that such material was heavily employed for. To this former end, the exhibition does succeed in creating a somewhat thematic storyline.

CONTENT: It uses representative posters to crisply fit into four (formerly five) political themes such as representation of the enemy, gender and masculinity as heavily depicted in the posters, social reform and regional autonomy.

In absence of any text to explain the choice of these sections, the selection may seem arbitrary or based primarily on the visual content of the posters. At some point it even begins to seem that the criterion of selection was an aesthetic grouping and then political themes were derived out of the grouping. Within the constraints of an archival collection, this might be a valid way of working except that the synergy that one expects to see between the explanation and the visuals is not as strong and evocative as it can be. The posters merely seem to illustrate the textual description and the text merely seems to describe what’s on the posters. A lot of questions about the reasons and patterns of representation are thus left unanswered.

In addition to the posters, in the current version of the exhibition, there are also various significant ephemera related to the war, which are distributed on a vitrine that forms an island between the parallel arrays of posters. This brings some disjointedness in to the display of posters and even the visual impact of the posters is diluted. Thus, in spite of the sectional storyline that attempts to tie up and contextualizes the artifacts, the evocative quality of the posters is somewhat lost. Perhaps it is the distribution of posters in space, or perhaps it is other design issues.

DISPLAY /AUDIENCE: Further, the entire exhibition is situated in a cozy corner of the lobby of the Bobst library which is only accessible to students, staff and faculty of NYU, and very rarely to few outsiders. In this way, there are hardly ever any focused visitors who would come into the space with the intention of understanding the nuances of propaganda in the Spanish Civil
War. The largest percentage of daily visitors is that of students who move into this secluded corner for a moment of privacy over mobile phone, or for some other reasons of seeking similar moments of solitude. Rarely, perhaps when there is nothing better to do, the students drop in for a casual glance.

With this sort of an audience the exhibition can not afford to delve into any subject which is not of popular interest. An exhibition relating to current popular culture or relating to achievements of NYU or its history seem appropriate for this space. But Spanish Civil War posters, even when they are pristinely displayed and carry high aesthetic appeal with the use of bright colors and bold figures, muster less interest.

The aspect of display is again to blame for this. The design could have been manipulated to make the exhibition more stimulating than it is currently. This does not mean that the display had to be loud, for it would conflict with the visual impact of the artworks, but minor details of typography such that it would not demand high levels of concentration, easy to follow labels, an interesting layout of vitrines within the space and an element of surprise here and there would have added interest to audience’s interaction with the exhibits and the space.

Thus, ironically enough, while the exhibition deals with a potent tool of propaganda i.e. the posters, it suffers from a spirit to propagate itself within its everyday audience. Perhaps the posters could have been interpreted better!

EXHIBITION TEXT: In terms of the explanation of the exhibition’s content, the flaw that pops out is an overtly sympathetic tone for the Republicans in the introductory text. At one place, the text addresses the Republican faction as ‘weak’. Even though I try hard not to bring in the comparison, I am prompted to think of the completely opposite picture that ‘Other Weapons’ gives of the Republicans – even in the face of loss how it was shrewdly employing best possible tactics to persuade widespread attention, help & sympathy, and at the same time continuously boosting the morale of its forces.

On another level, the use of a qualifying words like ‘weak’ might even reveal a subconscious bias, a sympathy, for the situation of the Republic in the mind of the copy-writer. Similarly the use of words ‘enemy’ and ‘horrors of fascism’ in the exhibition text could have been avoided in favor of a neutral explanation.

CONCLUSION: Perhaps the exhibition lacks the tact in handling such politically charged material. Or perhaps it just needs a better location or an appropriate design with respect to whatever space it is in. Perhaps it suffers because of the constraints of the budget and that of the collection itself. It’s true that when something fundamental is not right everything else seems to be making all the difference. But then, perhaps I am being unwisely judgmental or perhaps even after promising not to compare the two exhibitions I am but writing a comparative critique. Or perhaps…!!

The Rainy Williamsburg Walk

2007-11-15T11:04:00.000-05:00

Thanks to everyone who made it out to the Williamsburg Gallery Walk last friday! It was cold and rainy, but we had a great turn-out of brave museum studies students. Here's a few pics from the walk. Some favorite galleries were Pierogi and Jack the Pelican.

Enjoying drinks before the rainy walk

Street art in Brooklyn via Brazil

The City Reliquary in Williamsburg. This is a serious community-centric museum with all kinds of collections reflecting the people and environment of Brooklyn. Definitely visit if you're in the area. It's a really special kind of museum experience. The City Reliquary

Williamsburg Galleries

2007-11-06T19:48:00.000-05:00

Hi guys,
This friday, MSSO is heading out to Williamsburg. All the art galleries will be open until 9 on account of the Williamsburg Second Fridays. We're meeting at 7 o'clock at Oulo which is at 170 North 4th St. Thats just a couple blocks from the Bedford stop on the L train. Come for the art, stay for the food and drink afterwards!

Please RSVP to petersebeckis@hotmail.com

List of Galleries and Gallery Map

Two Great Museum Tours

2007-10-25T12:26:00.000-04:00

Two terrific museum tours are coming up in the near future, exclusively for NYU museum study stdents. The one at ICP will be led by the exhibition's curator, Jordan Mendelson. These are terrific opportunities to gain some museum insight. And the shows are bleeding great, too.

---CANCELED---
Friday 2nd November
International Center for Photography
'Other Weapons: Photography and Print Culture during the Spanish Civil War'
6.30-7.30pm
Meet 6.15 SHARP in the ICP Lobby
--The ICP tour is canceled due to the arrival of the Curator's baby!--

and...

Saturday 3rd November
Grey Art Gallery
The Geometry of Hope
1.30pm
Meet 1.15 SHARP in the Grey Art Gallery lobby

Reply to Tom at trh251@nyu.edu to RSVP for one or both of the tours!

Faculty Dinner Part Two

2007-10-18T12:26:00.000-04:00

Hi Museum Studiers,

Another Faculty Dinner is coming up soon. Thanks to everyone who attended and made the last dinner a success. The lovely Josephine Gear will be the faculty guest of honor. The dinner will be Wednesday, October 24th. Please RSVP to msso.nyu@gmail.com by Sunday, October 21.
The dinner is not free, but it will be tasty.

Also! This monday October 22 will be the second general meeting for museum studies students. 8:30 at 1 East 2nd St at Bowery. All are welcomed and encouraged to attend. Topics include professional development, upcoming events, feedback on the program, and more. See you there!

Profile Update

2007-10-18T11:44:00.000-04:00

Your blogger today.....

Peter Sebeckis, MSSO webmaster, webguy, tech....person

Hometown: Bloomington/Indianapolis, Indiana

Favorite Museums: Museum of Jurassic Technology, Vienna Natural History, San Diego Contemporary, Peary MacMillan Arctic Museum, Japan Society, Indianapolis Children's Museum, Shedd Aquarium, American Museum of Natural History, The City Reliquary (Brooklyn), Art Institute Chicago, Burke Museum

Favorite NY eats: Kenka, Rai Rai Ken, Otafuku, Pommes Frites, Jules, Think Coffee, Union Square/Fort Greene Park Farmers Markets (Saturdays), Cafe Steinhof (Park Slope), Freemans

Links: My personal blog

Please contact me if you have a museum or exhibition review or an announcement for the blog - pjs340@nyu.edu

All museum studies student submissions welcome!

NEW SHOWS

2007-10-09T11:38:00.000-04:00

It's fall, the leaves are changing, and it's 90 degrees outside.
Time for some new art shows!

KARA WALKER

This week, October 11th to be exact, is the opening of a big Kara Walker retrospective at the Whitney. Her haunting, black silhouettes bend, twist, flip, and illuminate the shadowy sides of American history. Expect her wall paintings, color-light projections and new animations to be on display.

SENSO UNICO

Across the water, at PS1, an all Italian show is opening at the old school house. 'Senso Unico' will be a look into the contemporary side of that lovable, boot-shaped nation. From the folks that brought you the Renaissance! Show opens October 21.

JAMES TURRELL

BTW, also at PS1, James Turrell's 'Meeting' opens for another season on October 11th. This site-specific play on natural light brings special attention to the autumn sky. It's super meditative for all the chill kids. Opens one hour before dusk, so plan on a late afternoon visit to the museum. Cheers!

Profile Update

2007-10-09T11:22:00.000-04:00

Wie Geht's, Museum Leute?

Another profile update for y'all. Only a few more left....

Today is....

Thomas Houlton, Social Chair

Hometown: Kingston-Upon-Hull (or just Hull will do), East Yorkshire, England

Favourite Museums: National Portrait Gallery, Tate Modern, Tate Britain, The British Library, Madame Tussauds, Victoria & Albert Museum, The Natural History Museum, Sir John Soane’s House, The Wallace Collection, The Gilbert Collection, British Film Institute (all London), Glasgow Art Gallery, (Glasgow, Scotland), Yorvik Centre (York, UK)), The Robin Hood Experience (Nottingham, UK), Ferens Art Gallery, Hull Transport Museum (Hull, UK), Housesteads Roman Fort and Hadrian’s Wall (Northumbria, UK), The Eden Project (Cornwall, UK), Trinity College Library (Dublin, Ireland), Blasket Isles Museum (Southern Ireland), State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), Athenium Art Museum, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki, Finland), Skansen Open Air Museum, Vasa Museum (Stockholm), El Museo de Bellas Artes (Santiago, Chile), Quinta Vergara (Viña del Mar, Chile), Rodin House Museum, Musée d’Orsay, Louvre (Paris, France), Museo Thyssen, El Museo del Prado (Madrid, Spain), The
Cloisters, The Met, The Morgan Library, The Hispanic Society, El Museo del Barrio, American Museum of Natural History The Frick Collection (New York), The Getty Museum, La Brea Tar Pits (Los Angeles), Bryce Canyon Museum (Bryce Canyon).

Favourite Historic Houses/Sites: Langinkoski Fishing Lodge (Finland), Peterhof Palace (St. Petersburg, Russia), Crathes Castle, Iona Abbey, Edinburgh Castle, Blair Castle, Dunnottar Castle, Eilean Donan Castle, Glengorm Castle, Glamis Castle, Kinloch Castle (Scotland), Scarborough Castle, Rievaulx Abbey, Fountains Abbey, Woodend, Sledmere House, Cragside, Trebah Gardens, Lanhydrock, Castle Drogo, Sissinghurst, Chatsworth House, Haddon Hall, Hardwick House, Lindisfarne, Stonehenge, Bamburgh Castle, Salt’s Mill (UK), La Isla Negra, San Sebastian (Two of Pablo Neruda’s Houses, Chile), Alhambra Palace (Granada, Spain), Versailles (Paris), Shönbrunn Palace (Austria), Sanssouci Royal Park (Potsdam, Germany), Drottingholm Palace (Stockholm, Sweden), any number of churches and cathedrals!

Favourite NY eats: The Clinton Street Baking Company, Sea, Think Coffee, Café Mozart, Five Points, Nobu, ‘Wichcraft, Black Hound Bakery, many many more!

Further Favourites: Books, reading, thinking, writing, music, playing the piano, singing, walking, wide open landscapes, good cakes, the drinking of tea, films, watching sports rather than playing them, conversation, Scotland and the North of England in general, antiquity, ruins, paganism, art, South America, architecture, good food and wine, the coast, comedy, travel.

Meet the Faculty Dinner

2007-10-04T14:04:00.000-04:00

Hola amigos del museo,

MSSO is pleased to announce the first Meet the Faculty Dinner featuring Jennifer Stampe and Jeffrey Trask. The Meet the Faculty Dinner Series is a collegial forum for Museum Studies students and faculty to learn more about one another outside of the classroom. This event will take place on Thursday, October 11 at 6pm. Please RSVP to msso.nyu@gmail.com by Monday, October 8th and you will be emailed further details as the date approaches.

(Actually dinner may vary.)

RICHARD PRINCE

2007-09-27T12:44:00.000-04:00

Everyone's favorite American Machismo Arist has a big retrospective going up this weekend at the Guggenheim. There's sure to be more cowboys, muscle cars, and biker chicks than at any Midwest County Fair. And his famous 'joke paintings' too.

RICHARD PRINCE
Guggenheim NY
September 28, 2007 - January 9, 2008

Profile Updates

2007-09-24T16:47:00.000-04:00

Hello museumphiles!

Another profile update for you today....

May Lu, MSSO Treasurer

Hometown: San Marino, CA

Favorite Museum(s): Can't decide...have to say MoMA because I interned there and SF MoMA since they are the Media Matters partners!

Favorite NY eats/restaurant: Kenka not for the food (except maybe the takoyaki) but for the cotton candy I'm getting good at making! and Panya for their green tea tiramisu

Area of Interest: Registrar/Collections Management, specifically
dealing with photography, paintings & sculpture, and especially New
Media Art (my forte)

Field Trip!

2007-09-20T12:34:00.000-04:00

This Saturday!

MSSO is planning a group excursion to The Cloisters located in beautiful Fort Tryon Park NYC!

You should have received an email from Dorothy today, but to recap...

Saturday September 22
Meet 190th St Subway stop on A Train 1.45pm to walk up to Museum

Contact Tom at trh251@nyu.edu to RSVP.

Should be a beautiful day! The Hudson River, Medieval Art, your Museum Studies friends.... and Unicorns! They're real!

Profile Updates

2007-09-20T11:42:00.000-04:00

Howdy Museumites,

Here's another profile update for you. This week is....

Katherine Gulick, Professional Chair and Secretary (w/ Bobby on the left)

Hometown: Philadelphia, PA

Favorite Museums: The Cloisters, International Center Of Photography, Rubin Mumeum Of Art, Brooklyn Museum, The Jewish Museum, The Museum At FIT, American Folk Art Museum, The Frick Collection, Grey Art Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, Tang Teaching Museum & Art Gallery (Saratoga Springs, NY), Philadelphia Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), Roman Baths & Museum (Bath, UK), Trinity College Library (Dublin, Ireland), The British Museum, Folger Shakespeare Library (Washington D.C.), Museum of African American History (Boston)

Favorite NY eats: Papaya Dog, Two Boots, Ray's Pizza on Houston, Spice (CHEAP); Cafe Spice and Vatan (INDIAN); Ichiro and Ashiya (JAPANESE); Ithaka (GREEK); Think Coffee, M. Rohr's, 71 Irving Place, 88 Orchard St. (COFFEE SHOPS); Sala Thai, Tiny Thai (THAI); 'Wichcraft At Bryant Park (SANDWICHES), Tonnie's Minis (CUPCAKES)

Facebook links: Can be found on Facebook and also as an Administrator For MSSO-MUSEUM STUDIES STUDENT ORGANIZATION on Facebook

Profile Updates

2007-09-18T13:55:00.000-04:00

Hi, Museum Fans!

MSSO just had a successful meeting last night, September 17. We had a lot of first year students in attendance, and we look forward to meeting more of you in future meetings! Lots of social events coming up, so I'll keep you posted on that.

In the meantime, we'd like to start introducing you to our current MSSO members. We'll feature some quick profiles of each of us, so everyone can start linking names to faces. First up is....

Laura Domingo, MSSO Vice President

Hometown: San Diego, CA

Favorite Museums: SculptureCenter, P.S.1, New Museum, Dia:Beacon, MoMA, MCA Chicago, MOCA (LA), MCASD, Tate Modern, Musée d'Orsay

Favorite NY eats: Kenka, Boyd Thai, Two Boots Pizza, Billy's cupcakes, Mama Mexico, Bottino's, Taste of Tokyo

Links:
Myspace - hulagirl415
Facebook - well, i'm on it, but i don't think there is a specific link
Blog - coming soon!! :)

A Message from the MSSO President

2007-09-10T09:47:00.000-04:00

Greetings and welcome to NYU’s Museum Studies Student Organization’s blog. My name is Bobby Ives and I serve as the President for MSSO. Over the next year we hope to implement an unprecedented amount of change within the organization and we can't do it without you. Some initiatives for this year are an alumni network, faculty events, a directory for students, career development workshops, behind the scenes tours of museums, and social events (since the best part of the Museum Studies program is the students). Help us make this year the best ever and join MSSO!

On a personal note, I hail from Oakbrook Terrace, one of the many suburbs of Chicago. I have a BA from Washington University in St. Louis in Political Science and International Studies. After graduating I moved to San Francisco and worked as the Housing Coordinator at the San Francisco Art Institute. Currently I work at NYU as the Academic Development Assistant in the Residential Education Department and I also intern in the Department of External Affairs at the New Museum of Contemporary Art which opens its new building on December 1st. I'm probably one of the last people on the planet not on facebook or myspace but regardless, you can contact me by email at arbokives@yahoo.com. Thanks for visiting the blog!
Give us your feedback and submissions at msso.nyu@gmail.com.

Welcome to NYU Museum Studies!

2007-09-04T12:27:00.000-04:00

Hello, new and returning Museum Studies students!

You've found the blog for the Museum Studies Student Organization. Today begins the first day of fall classes. Exciting times! With this blog we hope to maintain a forum for the Student Organization- an opportunity to communicate with other students. I'll be updating the site with museum studies news and interesting museum shows and events.

And if you have any stories, thoughts, museum/exhibit reviews - email them to your blogger- pjs340@nyu.edu. I'd like to make this blog highly communal.

The Richard Serra show is only up for a few more days. If you haven't seen it yet, it's worthwhile. And if you're new to the city, it's a great chance to see MoMA.

Check the site for hours- MoMA.org

Good luck with the semester and check this blog often for updates!

Blog on!

2007-05-06T18:48:00.001-04:00

In the old National Museum of the American Indian, where the Hispanic Society stands- September 2006

Hi! Welcome to "I Love Museums", the home of the Museum Studies Student Organization at New York University.