The Gund Gallery Associates Program Gives Kenyon Students Hands-On Experience

By Matt Mandel '19

The leaders of the Gund Gallery’s Associates Curatorial team presented their work on their intern-curated exhibition, Beyond the Club: Re-historicizing Women in Abstract Expressionism, on January 29.

The Gund Gallery Associates Program offers Kenyon students an opportunity to complement the education they have gained on the Hill with hands-on career experiences and informal learning opportunities. Working with museum professionals, the Associates participate in all aspects of museum work including behind-the-scenes operations, curatorial research and planning, which allows them to see how a museum or gallery functions as an institution. An extension of the classroom, the program integrates theory with practice by building and promoting collaboration and exchange between students, faculty and community.

The exhibition put the skills the student Associates gained on display. Gabrielle Bing ’19, Catherine Von Holt ’19 and Roberto Vasquez ’19 spoke confidently and eloquently about the research and goals behind their work. The trio has developed these skills at the Gallery during most of their college careers.

“While it is usually difficult to enter into work like curation,” Bing said, “especially while being a student in college, The Gund Gallery offered a means for learning — first through research and writing — and later on when I became a leader of the curatorial team, through exhibition design and outreach, by offering a variety of meaningful roles that prepare you for the field.”

The three curatorial leaders not only work hard at the Gallery, but are engaged in many aspects of campus life. When Bing, a religious studies major, is not at the Gallery, she is involved with Lighthouse, an arts collective which organizes events that use co-creative art making to encourage dialogue about issues facing the campus community. Von Holt, a political science major, is a peer counselor, a leader of Kenyon Students for Gun Sense, and a stage manager for Kenyon theater productions when she’s not curating. Vasquez, an art history major, is engaged in Kenyon’s dance program when he’s not immersed in the world of art. All three curatorial leaders became Associates in their sophomore year and transitioned to the curatorial team in their junior year.

“I thought it was a unique opportunity to combine what I’ve learned in art history with my interest in museums,” Vasquez said. “I’ve always been fascinated by museums as cultural centers from a young age. This allowed me to have a hands-on experience to interact with the artwork and see what goes on behind the scenes in museums. I was really interested in the institutional aspect of museums and seeing how narratives are constructed.”

After working on the Gallery’s Rafael Lazano-Hemmer exhibition two years ago, Vasquez wanted to be involved in the curatorial process, so he applied to be a curator. “My first project was an exhibition on Zapatistas and seeing how posters and ephemera of themselves can have a great impact in changing people’s minds,” he said. “It was interesting to do research on it and learn about the iconography, for example Zapatistas, and how each of the symbols carry a political message for the group.”

Like any good internship, the Gund Gallery Associates Program helps students apply academic skills — like researching and identifying what multidisciplinary information is most relevant — to a work setting; while also helping students identify the places where their studies intersect with the interests that drive them.

“There’s a near infinite amount of research that can be done as a curator, and the more research you do, the better,” Von Holt said. “It increases the amount of dots you can connect ‘behind’ the artwork, so to speak, and how much you can reveal about the significance of a piece of artwork for the viewer. Given my political interests, I suppose it makes sense that situating art within the world is the part of curatorial practice that I’m drawn to.”

For Bing, that intersection of work, studies and interest is where she is able to combine her love for learning, visual art, and storytelling.

“Curating has taught me that teaching is always a creative practice,” she said.  “I feel extraordinarily lucky to be able to combine a love of visual art and public education through curating at The Gund Gallery. You need to consider all of the ways to tell a story and decide which way is most resonant in a specific environment … working with new materials, and finding ways to connect them to broader, collective concern and interests, means that in the process of working, I learn to discover and appreciate new ways of thinking, designing and storytelling.”

Last year, this group of curatorial leaders worked on several of the Gallery’s exhibitions,  Through this complex effort, Bing, Vasquez and Von Holt used the resources that the Gallery and other college art museums have to create artistic dialogues between themes, ideas and movements.

“My favorite part of curating is the element of collaboration,” Bing said. “Putting together an exhibition means bringing different kinds of thinkers and creators into a specific conversation to see the ways in which people share some kind of understanding and a way of seeing the world, even if they've never met. The same applies to putting the exhibition together and elaborating on it. My favorite moments are when a team of people create something great by combining individually inspired ideas. This is the curatorial process as I've experienced it at The Gund Gallery.”

For Bing, Von Holt and Vasquez, the experience of being a curator has given them a new perspective and skills that they can use after Kenyon.

“I am inspired by socially engaged art and community-designed arts programming,” Bing said.  “I hope to use the skills and experiences I've gained at the Gund Gallery to continue the work of curation within a practice of community building and space-making.”

“Curating has given me the skill of communicating effectively and concisely to a large audience,” Vasquez explained. “That’s something I value and cherish from working here. A lot of the stuff I’ve learned here is definitely transferable.”

“While I don’t intend to go into museum work after graduating, I will always be aware of the potential and impact of art, and the ways in which art can convey certain things — emotions, experiences, even social movements — that words sometimes cannot,” Von Holt said. “I also think I’ve grown as a leader, learning what it means to lead a good meeting and to collaborate effectively. I’ll definitely use those skills for the rest of my life.”

The application process for the Gund Gallery Associate Program begins every September via Symplicity. For more information on the program, please contact Christopher Yates at yatesc@kenyon.edu.