For the first time in Spring, 2017, the University Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, presented a Teaching Gallery in collaboration with Karen Kurczynski, Assistant Professor, UMASS Department of the History of Art and Architecture. For the seminar Art History 391A: “Drawing Connections: Drawing in Contemporary Art,” students collaboratively curated their own exhibition drawn from the UMCA’s permanent collection. First, Professor Kurczynski and UMCA Collection Manager/Registrar Jennifer Lind selected drawings and other related works from the museum’s collection, including some new acquisitions, for the opening installation in January. Then, students enrolled in the seminar developed their own more focused exhibition entitled “Body Language,” which opened March 30–April 20, 2017. Students wrote wall labels for the exhibition and developed research papers on specific works from the UMCA and other Five College museum collections. Their scholarship is presented here as a collective, public investigation of the changing meaning of drawing in relation to unique and previously unstudied art works in the Five Colleges.

Technical instruction for this site was provided by Michele Turre for UMass Amherst Instructional Innovation.

The feature photograph of students Kelly Carroll and Rita Rushanan holding Richard Yarde’s Prayer (1996) was taken by Betsey Wolfson, Business and Communications Manager at the UMCA.