The year 2002 marks the tenth anniversary of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. Founded by Marieluise Hessel as a center for the study of late twentieth-century art, the CCS offers an innovative interdisciplinary graduate program in the curating and criticism of contemporary art. In the ten years since its founding, the graduate program has trained approximately a hundred professionals who hold curatorial positions in museums, galleries, and other exhibition spaces around the world. The CCS museum manages the Marieluise Hessel Collection of more than 1,600 paintings, sculptures, works on paper, artists’ books, and videotapes, as well as the Center’s permanent collection of recent gifts. The museum presents exhibitions of work by emerging artists and more established figures in its 9,500-square-foot exhibition space.

As a way to jointly celebrate the two programs of the CCS, three exhibitions drawn from the Hessel Collection and curated by some of the Center’s alumni/ae are being presented in the museum in the fall of 2002. In this way we also celebrate the vital role that CCS alumni/ae continue to play in the evolution of the institution. The Arch of Desire: Women in the Marieluise Hessel Collection is jointly curated by Ilaria Bonacossa and Cecilia Brunson (both class of 2001). Cecilia works as coordinator of exhibitions at the Americas Society, New York, and Ilaria is assistant curator at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino, Italy. Re(f)use was assembled by Rachel Gugelberger (class of ’97), who is the associate director of the Visual Arts Museum at the School of Visual Arts, New York. Text, Texture, Touch is organized by Tobias Ostrander (class of ’99), curator at the Museo Tamayo, Mexico City. The wide range of themes and issues explored in these shows mirrors the rich scope of the Hessel Collection. The collection continues to grow and acts as a consistent source of inspiration for the students who use it as part of their curatorial training and the visiting curators and staff who mine it for special exhibitions presented yearly at the museum. It is with pleasure that we present the latest of many insightful reinterpretations of an extraordinary collection that truly reflects the diverse cultural discourses and social realities of the turn of the twentieth century.

Amada Cruz
Director, CCS Museum

Published on the occasion of the exhibitions The Arch of Desire: Women in the Marieluise Hessel Collection, curated by Cecilia Brunson and Ilaria Bonacossa; Re(f)use, curated by Rachel Gugelberger; and Text, Texture, Touch, curated by Tobias Ostrander, presented at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, to mark the tenth anniversary of the Center for Curatorial Studies.

Support for the exhibitions has been provided by the Marieluise Hessel Foundation.

All works are from the Marieluise Hessel Collection on permanent loan to the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

© Center for Curatorial Studies, 2002

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