Author: Sam Browne
Upon receiving my acceptance for the intern position at Pitt’s University Art Gallery, or UAG, I was thrilled. I giddily daydreamt about how I would be spending my days doing research on upcoming exhibitions, doing work I was undoubtedly unqualified for. The reality, while much less grand (and much more bureaucratic), was still immensely satisfying for me. For about the first month and a half of my time at the UAG, I was compiling a statewide survey for the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries, or AAMG. Its scope was all upper-level educational institutions in the state, and it looked at museums and galleries kept by these institutions. I collected information on the kind of museum (not just history, science and art, but also things like arboretums, archives and planetariums), as well as the seeming funding and focus the school puts on them, so that the AAMG knows how and where to allocate their attention in recruiting new potential members. This work was all done in excel, which I had very little experience with beforehand, but after using it for 10 hours a week for six weeks, I think I gained a grasp on it.
After the completion of the AAMG survey, my tasks as intern became much more short-term. As the UAG prepared to host the Studio Arts seniors’ gallery show, I, along with other employees at the gallery, were recruited in the deinstalling process. This was my first time working in a museum space let alone handling art, so this experience was invaluable. One particular thing from the process I enjoyed was checking for physical damages that may have accrued while the works were on display. It was a painstaking, but satisfying process.
My aforementioned knowledge in excel came in handy a little later in the semester, when I was asked by the head of the gallery, Sylvia Rhor-Samaniego, to compile the attendance numbers from this school year, so it could be compared to previous years.
For one of my last jobs as intern at the UAG I helped my internship supervisor, Vuk Vuković, plan out his upcoming pop-up exhibition for sculptor-artist Wen-Ying Tsai. This was particularly exciting to me because curation is a career goal of mine. This involved doing cursory research on the objects Vuk had curated, creating labels for them, as well as helping to envision and format the space in which the exhibition was to take place.
Overall, I am extremely happy with the time I have spent at the UAG. I think having hands-on experience doing museum work has given me perspective on the sheer amount of things that are done to keep museums running and has only emboldened my decision for this career path.Could be interesting to elaborate on this process a little bit!
Sam Browne, Museum Studies Intern at the University of Pittsburgh’s University Art Gallery, Spring 2024