Students Research and Propose Art Acquisition

How do we decide what an artwork is worth? How has that changed over time? What is the art market and who contributes to it? Through a hands-on approach, students in this course will meet with dealers, curators, and auctioneers to think about artworks as objects of exchange. They will also assess the value of a particular artwork and make a pitch for its acquisition to our Miami University Art Museum. Over the course of the semester, students will gain a broad but practical understanding of the ways in which artworks have been valued and devalued, in both the current moment and the past, in order understand what the art market is and how it has come to be.

I learned a lot of valuable skills from this course and project about the world of arts markets and the value of art. Being able to work with real objects allowed me to understand the importance of conservation and provenance, as well as learn exactly how museums come to acquire their artworks. I chose to research Max Klinger's Self Portrait for the project and I was successful in my proposal, my piece was one of three chosen by the Miami University Art Museum to purchase.