Newcastle University

Background

I joined the Centre in July 2002. Prior to this, I worked as a curator, a lecturer in Art History and sometime languages teacher, translator and interpreter in the UK, in Italy and in the US.

Roles and Responsibilities

- Director of Research, School of Arts and Cultures, chair of School Research Committee
- Undergraduate modules co-ordinator (ICCHS)
- Member of School of Arts and Cultures Executive Committee
- Member of the Great North Museum Board
- Member of the University Cultural Affairs Steering Group

 Qualifications

- BA in Art History (University of Leicester)
- MA in Museum Studies (University of Leicester)
- PhD in Art History and Theory (Perfezionamento in Storia della Critica d'Arte) (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa)
- Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (Newcastle University)

Memberships

ICOM
Museums and Galleries History Group (www.mghg.org/)

Languages

Fluent Italian; reading skills in French and Spanish; learning Turkish.

Informal Interests

I am a keen distance runner, and run for North Shields Polytechnic Athletics Club, primarily in road, trail and cross-country races.

Research Interests

My research activities focus on both historical and contemporary museology. I have published extensively in the field of art museum history, with particular emphases on architecture, display and knowledge construction. My second major strand of activity relates to education and interpretation practices in art museums and galleries, and includes considerable government-funded and policy-relevant research. In the context of museological study I have strong interests in learning theory, social constructionism, theories of representation, cultural cartography, time and place, co-production, disciplinarity and discourse. I have published three monographs: The Public Art Museum in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Ashgate 2005); Museums and the Construction of Disciplines (Duckworth Bloomsbury Academic 2009); and, most recently, Interpreting Art in Museums and Galleries (Routledge 2011).

Current Work

I am an investigator on a number of research grants. Some of these are:

- the Newcastle University work package of the FP7 project 'Reinterpreting Europe's Cultural Heritage: towards the 21st century library and museum?' The work package in question examines the historical and contemporary relationships between European museum representations and identity within the contextual structure of place, and has a 422,000-euro budget from a grant total of c. 2.6 million euros.

- a £251,000 research project funded through the cross-council 'New Dynamics of Ageing' programme. The project aims to understand how the lives of older people can be improved by examining their use of contemporary visual art for identity construction practices through qualitative longitudinal study.

- Art on Tyneside, a £346,000 research project funded through the AHRC's Museums, Libraries and Archives programme. Working with Tyne and Wear Museums, the researchers have developed a new permanent display at the Laing Art Gallery called 'Northern Spirit: 300 years of art on Tyneside'. Research for the project has involved the study of interrelationships between identity, place and art. The project is profiled at artontyneside.wordpress.com/about/. Information about the gallery can be found at www.twmuseums.org.uk/news/northern-spirit/

I founded and co-ordinate the interdisciplinary research group on the Cultural Significance of Place (http://csopnu.wordpress.com/), which has a wide membership across the university.

Research Roles

I am Director of Research for the School of Arts and Cultures.

Postgraduate Supervision

I am currently supervising doctoral research relating to topics such as:
- gallery education practices in China and Taiwan (Yun ju Chen);
- constructions of learning in emergent contemporary visual art organisations and/or galleries (Emma Coffield)

I have supervised Claire Pike, Susannah Eckersley, Gabriella Petkova and Pamela Erskine-Loftus, all of whom have successfully completed their PhDs.

I would be interested in supervising doctoral students wishing to work on museum and gallery history or meaning making, interpretation and education in the art museum and gallery, epistemology, cultural cartography and representations and experiences of time and place.

Esteem Indicators

- Member of the AHRC Peer Review College (Academic)
- Chair of the Museums and Galleries History Group from 2002-7; (ww.mghg.org)
- External Examiner, Glasgow University, MLitt programmes in: History of Collecting and Collections; Decorative Arts & Design History; Revolution, Revival and Reform: Art in the
19th Century; Technical Art History
- Managing Editor, Museum and Society (www.le.ac.uk/ms/museumsociety.html)
- Member of Editorial Board of the Journal of Museum History
- Series editor (with Peter Stone and Peter Davis) of the 'Heritage Matters' book series published by Boydell and Brewer
- Frequent national and international invitations for keynotes, masterclasses and symposia

Funding

I am/have been an investigator on the following projects:

- 'the roles of museums/libraries for promoting a real democratic EU citizenship "in the age of migration"' (MELA consortium, Work package 1), EU FP7, overall value 2.6 million euros

- Contemporary visual art and identity construction - wellbeing amongst older people. Value: £250,795.

- 'Art on Tyneside': redeveloping a permanent display about art, place and identity at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle. This is funded through the AHRC's one-off Museums, Galleries, Libraries and Archives Research Grants. Value: £345,637.

- En-quire national research programme, which has the aim of exploring, assessing and articulating the special learning benefits to young people of working with contemporary art and the gallery space. The project is funded by DCMS and DfES and managed by Engage, the national organisation for gallery education in association with the Arts Council of England. Value: £50,000 (www.en-quire.org/)

- Five Arts Cities research project (funded by Arts Council England and Channel 5) to investigate the impact on older visitors of participation in gallery events. Value: £3,000

- Artists' Insights research project (funded by Arts Council England and the Museums Libraies and Archives Council) into the practices, and the learning outcomes and impact, of writers and visual artists working with young people and educators/facilitators in cultural sites and schools. Value: £50,000

Keywords

art curatorship; knowledge construction; epistemology; display; art interpretation; gallery learning and education; museum history; social constructionism; disciplinarity; cultural cartography; place; Bourdieu.

Projects

• Artists’ Insights:a study of the practices, and the learning outcomes and impact, of writers and visual artists working with young people and educators/facilitators in cultural sites and schools
  Project Leader(s): Bernadette Buckley, Anna Goulding, Andrew Newman and Chris Whitehead
• Enquire: a study of art museum and gallery education activities and participant learning
  Project Leader(s): Bernadette Buckley, Anna Goulding, Andrew Newman and Chris Whitehead
• Learning and motivation in the contemporary art gallery
  Project Leader(s): Areti Galani, Andrew Newman, Rhiannon Mason and Chris Whitehead

Undergraduate Teaching

I contribute occasional lectures to stage 1 art history modules, primarily on the Italian Renaissance, and to undergraduate modules in cultural and heritage studies.

Postgraduate Teaching

I contribute to the compulsory modules on the postgraduate programmes of the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies and have special responsibility for leading the Art Museum and Gallery Studies programme.

• Newman A, Goulding A, Whitehead C. Art and the construction and use of symbolic meanings: identity maintenance and revision processes in late adulthood. Cultural Sociology 2012. In Preparation.
• Newman A, Goulding A, Whitehead C. An examination of the responses of older adults to the field of contemporary visual art. Ageing and Society (special issue) 2011. In Preparation.
• Buckley B, Goulding A, Newman A, Pringle E, Whitehead C. Artists, Young people and Galleries, Artists' Insights. Engage Journal 2011, 27, 12-26.
• Whitehead C. Grand Designs. Labor, Empire, and Museum in Victorian Culture. Journal of the History of Collections 2011, (epub ahead of print).
• Mason R, Whitehead C, Graham H. One Voice to Many Voices: Displaying Polyvocality in an Art Gallery. In: Modest, W., Golding, V, ed. Curators and Communities: New Approaches to Collaboration in the Museum. Blackwell, 2011. In Press.
• Whitehead C. Institutional autobiography and the architecture of the art museum: restoration and remembering at the National Gallery in the 1980s. In:Hill, K., ed. Museums and Biographies.:Boydell,2011. In Press.
• Newman A, Goulding A, Whitehead C. The Consumption of Contemporary Visual Art: Identity Formation in Late Adulthood. Cultural Trends 2012, 21(1), 31-47. In Press.
• Whitehead C. Interpreting Art in Museums and Galleries. Routledge, 2011.
• Newman A, Whitehead C. North East England Phase 2.0. Engage, 2006.
• Goulding A, Newman A, Whitehead C. North East England Phase 2.1 Research Report, Unpublished research report to Engage (15,000 words). 2007.
• Newman A, Whitehead C. Five Arts Cities: An evaluative report on the impact on over 50s people of participation in activities related to the British Art Show 6. BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, 2006.
• Goulding A, Newman A, Whitehead C. North East cluster research report. In: Taylor B; Houghton N, ed. Inspiring Learning in Galleries. London: Engage, 2008.
• Goulding A, Newman A, Whitehead C. Evaluation of the London Museums Hub Learning Programme, Unpublished research report to London Museums Hub. (48,200 words). 2008.
• Whitehead C. Towards Some Cartographic Understandings of Art Interpretation in Museums. In:Fritsch, J., ed. Museum and Gallery Interpretation and Material Culture.London:Routledge,2011. In Press.
• Whitehead C. National Art Museum Practice as Political Cartography in 19^th Century Britain. In: Knell S; Aronsson P; Amundsen AB; Barnes A; Burch S; Carter J; Gosselin V; Hughes S; Kirwan AM, ed. National Museums: New Studies from Around the World. London: Routledge, 2010. In Press.
• Mason R, Whitehead C, Graham H. Northern Spirit: 300 Years of Art on Tyneside. 2010.Newcastle upon Tyne: Laing Art Gallery.
• Mason R, Whitehead C, Graham H. The Place of Art in the Public Art Gallery: A Visual Sense of Place. In: Davis, P; Corsane, G; Convery, I, ed. Making Sense of Place. Boydell and Brewer, 2010. In Press.
• Whitehead C. Locating art: The display and construction of place identity in art galleries. In: Peralta E; Anico M, ed. Heritage and Identity: Engagement and Demission in the Contemporary World. Abingdon: Routledge, 2009, pp. 29-46.
• Whitehead C. Museums and the Construction of Disciplines: Art and Archaeology in 19th Century Britain. London: Duckworth Academic, 2009.
• Alberti S, Whitehead C, eds. Constructing Nature Behind the Glass. Museum & Society 2008, 6(2).
• Goulding A, Newman A, Whitehead C. Every Child Matters: Report on the London Museums Hub’s contribution to the Every Child Matters agenda. London: London Museums Hub, 2008.
• Newman A, Whitehead C. Impact de la participation aux activités pédagogiques d’une galerie sur le capital humaine, social et culturel des élèves. In:Évaluer les effets de l’éducation artistique et culturelle . Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou ; La Documentation française, 2008, pp. 441-449.
• Whitehead C. Ken Arnold. Cabinets for the Curious: Looking Back at Early English Museums. Journal of British Studies 2008. , 47(2), 410-413.
• Goulding A, Newman A, Whitehead C. North East Cluster Phase 2.1 Research Report: artistic and pedagogical skill-sharing between teachers and artists. In: Taylor B, ed. Inspiring Learning in Galleries 02: Research Reports. London: Engage, 2008, pp. 92-117.
• Goulding A, Newman A, Whitehead C. North East Cluster Phase 2.2 Research Report: artists working in gallery education contexts with children and young people. In: Taylor B, ed. Inspiring Learning in Galleries 02: Research Reports. London: Engage, 2008.
• Newman A, Whitehead C. The impact of participation in gallery education activities on schoolchildren’s human, social and cultural capital. In: Evaluating the Impact of Arts and Cultural Education on Young People: A European and International Research Symposium. Paris: La Documentation Francais, Centre Pompidou, 2008, pp.421-429.
• Buckley B, Goulding A, Newman A, Pringle E, Whitehead C. Artists’ Insights: A study of the practices, and the learning outcomes and impact, of visual artists working with young people and educators/facilitators in art gallery contexts, Unpublished report to Arts Council England, (61,800 words).. 2007.
• Whitehead C. Establishing the manifesto: art histories in the nineteenth-century museum. In: Knell, SJ; Macleod, S; Watson, S, ed. Museum Revolutions: How museums change and are changed. London and New York: Routledge, 2007, pp. 48-60.
• Whitehead C. Aesthetic Otherness, Authenticity and the Roads to Museological Appropriation: Henry Cole's Travel Writing and the Making of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Studies in Travel Writing 2006, 10(1), 1-26.
• Newman A, Whitehead C. Fivearts Cities: an evaluative report on the impact on over 50s people of participation in activities related to British Art Show 6. Gateshead, UK:BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art,2006.
• Newman A, Whitehead C. North East Cluster Research Report. In: Taylor, B, ed. Inspiring Learning in Galleries. London: Engage, 2006, pp. 122-155.
• Whitehead C. Architectures of Display at the National Gallery The Barry Rooms as art historiography and the problems of reconstructing historical gallery space. Journal of the History of Collections 2005,17 2 189-211.
• Whitehead C. Book review: Culture and Class in english Public Museums 1850-1914. Museum and Society 2005, 3(3), 181-182.
• Whitehead C. Book review: The Culture of Property: The Crisis of Liberalism in Modern Britain. Journal of Urban History 2005,31 6 .
• Whitehead C. Henry Cole's European travels and the building of the South Kensington Museum in the 1850s. Architectural History 2005, 48, 207-234.
• Whitehead C. The Public Art Museum in Nineteenth Century Britain: The Development of the National Gallery. Aldershot:Ashgate,2005.
• Whitehead C. To Display is to Theorise. Architectural Research Quarterly 2005. ,8 3-4 202-203.
• Whitehead C. Enjoyment for the Thousands: sculpture display at South Kensington 1851-1862. In: Yarrington, A., Sicca Bursill-Hall, C., ed. The Lustrous Trade: Material Culture and the History of Sculpture in England and Italy, c.1700-c.1860. London, UK: Leicester University Press, 2000, pp. 222-239.
• Whitehead C. Visiting with Suspicion: recent perspectives on art museums and galleries. In:G. Corsane, ed. Heritage, Museums and Galleries: an introductory reader.London:Routledge,2004, pp. 89-99.
• Whitehead C. Live Interpretation and Art in Museum, Gallery and Heritage Studies. European Insights (International Museum Theatre Alliance Europe 2003, 5(1), 2-4.
• L. Pratt and C. Whitehead. Notes on exhibitors. In:Making Buildings (exhibition catalogue . London: Crafts Council, 2001.
• C. Whitehead. Archival Sources for the Study of the Eighteenth-Century Anglo-Italian Marble Trade. The Sculpture Journal 1999, 44-53.
• M. Barnes and C. Whitehead. The “Suggestiveness” of Roman Architecture: Henry Cole and Pietro Dovizielli’s Photographic Survey of 1859. Architectural History 1998, 41.
• C. Whitehead. Systems of Display and Object Communication in Italian Museums: the territory exhibited. Museological Review 1997, 4, pp. 29-40.
• C. Whitehead. Gustav Friedrich Waagen’s Museographical System of 1853’, Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore. In: Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, ed. Scritti in Onore del Kunsthistorisches Institut. 1996, pp. 425-40.