Museum as Classroom

September 22, 2022–January 8, 2023

Drawing of a male nude from side, posed looking over shoulder

The ongoing exhibition series Museum as Classroom materializes the connections between the Smart Museum’s collection and the intellectual life of the University of Chicago.

Arranged in divergent clusters, the objects on view are curated in direct dialogue with the arguments, questions, and themes of individual courses across disciplines. The installation offers students an opportunity to examine artworks associated with their classes and provides a glimpse of University teaching for all of the Museum’s visitors.

The Fall 2022 iteration of Museum as Classroom will support four courses: “Art and Feminism” in the Department of Art History, the Social Sciences Division Core course “Power, Identity, Resistance,” the Humanities Collegiate Division Core course “Media Aesthetics,” and the Department of Visual Arts course “Seeing Through Drawing.” The installation will be an anchor to class discussions and related assignments—inviting students to visit and revisit an artwork throughout the term.

Top: Installation view, Museum as Classroom, 2022, Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago. Photo by Tyler Mallory. 

Above: Karel Viteslav Masek, Male Nude (Academy), 1885, Charcoal on laid paper mounted on parchment paper. Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Gift of Mr. Richard Armstrong, 1980.57.