Rika Burnham

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Rika Burnham is head of education at the Frick Collection in New York City. In 2018, she was a guest scholar at the Getty Research Institute. [1] Previously, Burnham worked as the project director of the Teaching Institute for Museum Education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as a museum educator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and as an adjunct professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is a widely published scholar in the field of Museum education.

Contents

Early life and education

Burnham was born in New York City and grew up in suburban New York state. She completed her bachelor's degree in art history at Harvard University. In a recent interview for the Archive of Museum Education, Burnham reflected on a course she took at Harvard titled "Design Principles," a descendant of the Bauhaus movement. She identified this course as " the first time I had ever looked at something, for a long time, lovingly, and with questions." After graduating, Burnham interned at the Philipsburg Manor House in Sleepy Hollow, New York. As a young woman, Burnham studied dance with Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham. Between 1975 and 1990, she worked as a professional dancer and choreographer with her own dance group, the Burnham Company. [2] [3] [4]

Career in museum education

In 1986, one year after graduating from Harvard, Rika Burnham completed a summer internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She used her experience as a dancer to lead gallery interventions for the Arts Awareness Program under the direction of Philip Yenawine. At the end of her internship, Burnham continued working at the Met through the Rockefeller Fellowship in Museum Education. Burnham also taught art education courses at Teachers College until 2008, at the invitation of Professor Judith Burton. She continued on at the Met until 2008, when she became the head of education at the Frick Collection. [5] Burnham spearheaded a major overhaul of the Frick's educational programming, including the professionalization of their lecture program, the introduction of a paid museum education internship program and the institution of a monthly free evening. Since 2016, Burnham has taught a course called "The Literature of Art" for Columbia University's Master of Science in Narrative Medicine. [6] Until 2018, Burnham worked as the head of the Teaching Institute for Museum Education at the SAIC, where she applied some of the arts awareness strategies she developed at the Met.

Collaboration with Elliot Kai-Kee

Burnham and Elliott Kai-Kee, both faculty members at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Teaching Institute in Museum Education (TIME), have co-written a PROSE Award-winning book, Teaching in the Art Museum: Education as Experience (2011). [7] They have also published two articles together: "The Art of Teaching in the Museum" (2005), and "Museum Education and the Project of Interpretation in the Twenty-First Century" (2007). In their work, Burnham and Kai-Kee expound upon hermeneutics, or the theory of interpretation. They identify the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer as an intellectual antecedent. The impact of their work has been recognized by both practitioners of gallery teaching and scholars of Art History. [8]

Professional organizations

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frick Collection</span> Art museum in New York City

The Frick Collection is an art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection features Old Master paintings and European fine and decorative arts, including works by Bellini, Fragonard, Goya, Holbein, Rembrandt, Titian, Turner, Velázquez, Vermeer, Thomas Gainsborough, and many others. The museum was founded by the industrialist Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919), and its collection has more than doubled in size since opening to the public in 1935. The Frick also houses the Frick Art Reference Library, a premier art history research center established in 1920 by Helen Clay Frick (1888–1984).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Paul Getty Trust</span> American art institution in Los Angeles

The J. Paul Getty Trust is the world's wealthiest art institution, with an estimated endowment of US$7.7 billion in 2020. Based in Los Angeles, California, it operates the J. Paul Getty Museum, which has two locations—the Getty Center in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and the Getty Villa in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. Its other programs are the Getty Foundation, the Getty Research Institute, and the Getty Conservation Institute.

Artstor is a nonprofit organization that builds and distributes the Digital Library, an online resource of more than 2.5 million images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences, and Shared Shelf, a Web-based cataloging and image management software service that allows institutions to catalog, edit, store, and share local collections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual arts education</span> Area of arts education based on visuals

Visual arts education is the area of learning that is based upon the kind of art that one can see, visual arts—drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, and design in jewelry, pottery, weaving, fabrics, etc. and design applied to more practical fields such as commercial graphics and home furnishings. Contemporary topics include photography, video, film, design, and computer art. Art education may focus on students creating art, on learning to criticize or appreciate art, or some combination of the two.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York University Institute of Fine Arts</span>

The Institute of Fine Arts (IFA) is a graduate school and research center of New York University dedicated to the study of the history of art, archaeology, and the conservation and technology of works of art. It offers Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Art History and Archeology, the Advanced Certificate in Conservation of Works of Art, and the Certificate in Curatorial Studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Getty Research Institute</span> Organization with archives and databases for art history and provenance research

The Getty Research Institute (GRI), located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giovanna Garzoni</span> Italian artist (1600–1670)

Giovanna Garzoni (1600–1670) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. She began her career painting religious, mythological, and allegorical subjects but gained fame for her botanical subjects painted in tempera and watercolour. Her works were praised for their precision and balance and for the exactitude of the objects depicted. More recently, her paintings have been seen to have female bodily associations and proto-feminist sentiments. She combined objects very inventively, including Asian porcelain, exotic seashells, and botanical specimens. She was often called the Chaste Giovanna due to her vow to remain a virgin. Scholars have speculated Garzoni may have been influenced by fellow botanical painter Jacopo Ligozzi although details about Garzoni's training are unknown.

The Getty Foundation, based in Los Angeles, California at the Getty Center, awards grants for "the understanding and preservation of the visual arts". In the past, it funded the Getty Leadership Institute for "current and future museum leaders", which is now at Claremont Graduate University. Its budget for 2006–07 was $27.8 million. It is part of the J. Paul Getty Trust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conservator-restorer</span> Professional responsible for the preservation of artistic and cultural artifacts

A conservator-restorer is a professional responsible for the preservation of artistic and cultural artifacts, also known as cultural heritage. Conservators possess the expertise to preserve cultural heritage in a way that retains the integrity of the object, building or site, including its historical significance, context and aesthetic or visual aspects. This kind of preservation is done by analyzing and assessing the condition of cultural property, understanding processes and evidence of deterioration, planning collections care or site management strategies that prevent damage, carrying out conservation treatments, and conducting research. A conservator's job is to ensure that the objects in a museum's collection are kept in the best possible condition, as well as to serve the museum's mission to bring art before the public.

The Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), located in Los Angeles, California, is a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust. It is headquartered at the Getty Center but also has facilities at the Getty Villa, and commenced operation in 1985. The GCI is a private international research institution dedicated to advancing conservation practice through the creation and delivery of knowledge. It "serves the conservation community through scientific research, education and training, model field projects, and the dissemination of the results of both its own work and the work of others in the field" and "adheres to the principles that guide the work of the Getty Trust: service, philanthropy, teaching, and access." GCI has activities in both art conservation and architectural conservation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maxine Greene</span> American philosopher

Sarah Maxine Greene was an American educational philosopher, author, social activist, and teacher. Described upon her death as "perhaps the most iconic and influential living figure associated with Teachers College, Columbia University", she was a pioneer for women in the field of philosophy of education, often being the sole woman presenter at educational philosophy conferences as well as being the first woman president of the Philosophy of Education Society in 1967. Additionally, she was the first woman to preside over the American Educational Research Association in 1981.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum education</span>

Museum education is a specialized field devoted to developing and strengthening the education role of informal education spaces and institutions such as museums.

Mary Caroline Richards was an American poet, potter, and writer best known for her book Centering: in Pottery, Poetry and the Person. Educated at Reed College, in Portland, Oregon, and at the University of California at Berkeley, she taught English at the Central Washington College of Education and the University of Chicago, but in 1945 became a faculty member of the experimental Black Mountain College in North Carolina where she continued to teach until the end of the summer session in 1951.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynn Garafola</span> American Linguist

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References

  1. ↑ "Getty Research Institute Announces 2018/1019 Scholars in Residence | News from the Getty". getty.edu. Retrieved 2020-11-27.
  2. ↑ "Rika Burnham Dance". www.rikaburnhamdance.com. Retrieved 2020-12-08.
  3. ↑ "Rika Burnham". NYPL Digital Collections. Retrieved 2020-12-08.
  4. ↑ "Jacobs Pillow Archive : Moving image : Victoria Marks and Rika Burnham / The Burnham Company: Inside/Out [79]". archives.jacobspillow.org. Retrieved 2020-12-08.
  5. ↑ "Appointment of Rika Burnham as Head of Education | The Frick Collection". www.frick.org. Retrieved 2020-11-04.
  6. ↑ "Head of Education at New York's Frick Collection Joins Narrative Medicine Faculty | Columbia University School of Professional Studies". sps.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2020-11-04.
  7. ↑ "2011 Award Winners". PROSE Awards. Retrieved 2020-11-27.
  8. ↑ Nathaniel Prottas (2017). "Contextualization and Experience in the Museum: Hans-Georg Gadamer, Art History, and Dialogical Teaching". The Journal of Aesthetic Education. 51 (3): 1–25. doi:10.5406/jaesteduc.51.3.0001. ISSN   0021-8510. S2CID   149412556.
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