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Nanette Shaw
Jean Galard, head of the Cultural Services department at the Louvre Museum, Paris, will discuss the history of French museums and the question of public access at a special conference at The CUNY Graduate Center on April 17. Mr. Galard’s lecture will take place from 5:30-8:30 p.m. in room 9204-05 of The Graduate Center’s new campus at 365 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. It will be free and open to the public. Mr. Galard’s talk, "The Uses of Public Space and the Articulation of Public Voice," will focus on the changing role and nature of the museum from the 18th century to the present. Specifically, it will address such points as the impetus behind the founding of the modern museum in the late 18th century, the perceived "indecency" of the art contained in museums during the 19th century, the perception that museums are artificial or somehow unnatural in the 20th century, and contemporary efforts to unmake and desanctify the museum space. Thus, Galard will examine how the museum must create for itself a continuous relationship with its social environment and how it negotiates and navigates public "scandal" in the process. Mr. Galard joined the Louvre in 1987 as the head of the newly founded Cultural Services unit. The unit’s mission is to develop public use of the Louvre and familiarity with its collections, as well as contribute to public knowledge in matters of art history and archaeology. Mr. Galard has taught philosophy and aesthetics in Autun, Troyes, and Paris, and was on the faculty of the University of São Paolo from 1968-71. He has also been cultural attaché in French embassies and director of French cultural institutes in Casablanca, Niamey, Istanbul, Mexico City, and Amsterdam. His edited and authored books include Orphée, Mort des beaux-Arts, La beauté du geste, and Visiteurs du Louvre. "The Uses of Public Space and the Articulation of Public Voice" is one event in a three-part series entitled "The Scandal of Art: Art: Its Publics and Its Critics in Modern France." "The Scandal of Art" series seeks to address questions of public outcry, critical upheaval, and tensions between viewers and consumers, public officials and organizers of artistic presentation, and artists themselves, in the domains of literature, music, fine arts, and performance. Its other components are "Scandal of Surrealism" (March 24) and "The Scandal of the Body on Display" (April 14). "The Scandal of Art" is sponsored by the Ph.D. Program in French of The CUNY Graduate Center. The Graduate Center is the doctorate-granting institution of the largest urban university in the U.S. The only consortium of its kind in the nation, it draws its faculty of more than 1,600 members mainly from the CUNY senior colleges and cultural and scientific institutions throughout New York City. Established in 1961, the CUNY Graduate Center has grown to an enrollment of nearly 4,000 students in 31 doctoral programs and seven master's degree programs in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The Graduate Center also houses 24 research centers and institutes and administers the CUNY Baccalaureate Program. According to a recent National Research Council report, more than a third of The Graduate Center’s rated programs rank among the nation's top 20 at public and private institutions, nearly a quarter are among the top ten when compared to publicly supported institutions alone, and more than half are among the top five programs at publicly supported institutions in the northeast. Further information on The Graduate Center's programs and activities can be found on its Web site at: www.gc.cuny.edu. |