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The International MA in Curating Art was founded in 2003, as one of the first curatorial studies programmes in Scandinavia, and has been developed as an ongoing collaboration between Art History (together with the schools of Business and Law) at the university together with prominent art institutions in Stockholm.

These include Magasin III, Moderna Museet and Artipelag, although we work with a broad range of public, commercial and independent organisations who actively contribute to the programme, such that it has become a nexus which reflects, and is in constant dialogue with, dynamic and vibrant arts contexts, both locally and further afield.

Balance of theory and practice

Curating Art was always conceived as embodying an innovative balance of theory and practice which, together with professional competence development within the areas of arts management and law, not only offers preparation for the multifaceted nature of curatorial practice, but also a curator’s shifting orientation as a thinking practitioner and practicing theoretician.

This conjoining has also informed the programme’s emergence as a production platform in itself. Involving collaboration with numerous artists, both emerging and established, giving rise to a yearly programme of exhibitions, seminars and events, as a central part of master’s level study. The voice and contribution of the artist is seen as a crucial aspect of this process and, together with our students’ often cross-disciplinary interests, naturally encourages engagement with expanded notions of curating, with projects taking place on campus and also within a myriad of locations across the city, both within and beyond established arts venues.

New institutional paradigms

The ways in which theory can live a life of its own in practice also inspires the programme and its students to engage with questions of approach to practical production and how exhibitions and related cultural projects can offer opportunities for devising and developing new ways for presenting and embodying knowledge. The critical position of artistic practices, together with the role that academic research can play in cultural production, led the programme to become one of the main initiators of Accelerator, a new public venue for interdisciplinary collaborations between contemporary arts, science and research, that opened on the university campus in 2019. One way to speculate about the future of curatorial practice is to contribute to the creation of new institutional paradigms, and Accelerator is just such a proposition. It is also the latest in a series of initiatives that have characterised the development of this relatively young academic discipline, innovating future potentials in curatorial study and curatorial practice.

Aim of Programme

The international Master's programme Curating Art is a two-year curatorial education established and developed as a joint enterprise between Stockholm University and institutions from the art world. Its full name – Curating Art: International Master's Programme in Curating Art, including Management and Law – reflects the curator’s internationalised, professional role and job market. With this as starting point, we wish to focus on the presentation and understanding of art and art exhibitions, including aspects connected to management, organization, institutional frameworks, and legal issues. The students who join the programme represent a broad spectrum of interests, spanning from new tendencies in contemporary art and curatorial practice, to urgent political issues such as environmental challenges and sustainability. Their interests influence topics for assignments, collaborations, and projects that are developed throughout the two years of studies.

Academic and practice based

Curating Art is in equal shares an academic and practice based education. By merging theory and practice in the courses, the programme stresses the interrelations of these issues. Thus, the courses are integrated with each other in terms of aims and focus. Cognitive aspects from one course reappear in another as a reflective resource. This means that borders are crossed: theory and practice are considered as interdependent in the curator’s work; conceptual ideas are thought of as influenced by experiential, and vice versa.

The programme was initiated by Margaretha Rossholm Lagerlöf, Professor emerita in Art History; David Neuman, Founder and Director of Magasin III Museum & Foundation for Contemporary Art; Bo Nilsson, Artistic Director Artipelag and former Director of Rooseum, Liljevalchs konsthall and Charlottenborg; and Pierre Guillet de Monthoux, Professor and Head of Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School. Their professional width, experience, and engagement continue to have a strong imprint on the programme both through its connections to the art world and in its pedagogical aims and methods.

Guidance of a mentor

The closeness to the art world is emphasised in courses and faculty. Throughout the programme the students meet a great number of curators and other professionals of the art field, through seminars, in recurring workshops on curatorial tools, and through the final examination that consists of the realisation of a curatorial project (combined with an academic Master thesis). Each student has access to the guidance of a mentor, who would be a member of the Steering group or an external curator connected to the programme.