To keynote speaker Malcolm Baker, Friday’s UCLA Art
History Graduate Student Symposium is exciting.
It’s not because in one day, it will feature nine
presentations by art history graduate students from across the
country. It’s not because it marks the 40th anniversary of
the annual event, the longest-running of its kind in the U.S.
It’s because the event itself is a metaphor for the topic
to be considered.
This year’s symposium, titled “On Collecting:
Formation, Transmission and Reception,” will consider the
effect that the collecting of art has on its understanding and
history. The event will run from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the UCLA
Hammer Museum in Westwood.
What excites Baker, an art history professor at USC and director
of the USC-Getty Program in the History of Collecting and Display,
is that a conference on art collecting will be held at a
museum.
Historically, museums have taken on nearly all of the study of
art collecting. However, as the relatively new field gains
attention and interest, art history departments have started to
take notice and study it themselves. This symposium may begin the
slow process of passing the torch.
“We’re at a point where we’re exploring the
possibilities for bringing the two together,” Baker said.
In his thick British accent, Baker discussed the relationships
between art and collecting and the relationships between museums
and art history departments in largely abstract terms.
Because the study of collecting is still a relatively new field,
there’s not yet a specific language or jargon that can
clarify ideas or relationships. Everyone just has to take it
slowly, pay attention, and ask questions.
Baker became interested in the topic while curating an exhibit
on collecting for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London a few
years ago.
“The idea that really engaged me was the way in which, not
only could a collection be put together over a long period with
planning and an agenda, but how these collections are used so that
different parts of the collections have been privileged,” he
said.
Baker’s opening remarks will focus on how the history of
collecting art has influenced the way people have thought about
art.
Nine graduate students will then follow Baker’s lead and
speak on a wide variety of topics related to the history of art
collecting, from 18th-century Chinese art collectors to the
difficulty of collecting architecture.
One of the symposium’s three graduate-student organizers,
Naima Keith, said the organizing team chose the topic of collecting
both because it’s a new and growing field and because it
allows for presentations on an almost infinite variety of art
history periods.
Since this marks the 40th year of the symposium, Keith, along
with fellow organizers Kristen Loring and Chinghsin Wu, wanted to
pick a topic that could include as many periods of art history as
possible.
“We wanted something that looks at the work, and also
looks at how the work changes and has a theoretical basis,”
Keith said.
When trying to think of a keynote speaker to talk about art
collecting, Keith said Baker was an easy choice. Despite the fact
that he’s a local and may not be as outwardly exciting as
speakers of the past, Keith is excited to hear his lecture.
“Everyone wants Beyoncé or Michael Jackson, but that
doesn’t mean the singer at the local bar isn’t
good,” she said. “We’re very lucky to get
him.”