What Can I Do as an Art History Major?

Art|Art History

As an art history major, you can pursue a variety of careers in the arts and humanities. With a degree in art history, you can work as an art critic or historian; develop exhibitions for museums and galleries; teach in a college or university; or work with conservation and preservation of works of art. You will acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to understand, analyze, compare, and interpret works of art from various periods and cultures.

In addition to learning about traditional Western art, you will also gain understanding about non-Western cultures through the study of their visual culture. This includes the study of Native American and African American arts as well as Asian, Latin American and Islamic arts. You will also learn about contemporary art movements such as pop art, minimalism, abstract expressionism, conceptualism, digital media arts, performance art and installation art.

You’ll have the opportunity to explore a wide range of topics such as iconography; aesthetics; patronage systems; cultural identity; gender issues; power dynamics; colonialism; globalism; race relations; materiality; politics in visual culture; historiography in visual culture studies; theories of representation and authorship in visual culture studies.

As an art history major you may become involved with curatorial research for museum exhibitions or historical archives related to works of art. You may also be able to participate in internships at museums or galleries where you can gain hands-on experience with the curatorial process from gallery setup to cataloging objects for exhibition.

A degree in Art History also prepares students for graduate studies in Art History or related fields such as Visual Culture Studies or Museum Studies. Graduate study allows further exploration into more specialized topics such as archival research methods in museum studies or semiotics in visual culture studies.

What Can I Do As An Art History Major?

An Art History major provides students with a wide range of career options including working as an Art Critic or Historian, developing exhibitions for Museums/Galleries, teaching at Colleges/Universities or working with conservation/preservation of artwork. Additionally they get to explore cultural identity through non-western cultures and contemporary movements like Pop Art etc., which could even lead them towards internships at museums/galleries giving them hands-on experience with curation process from gallery setup to cataloging objects for exhibition. Furthermore it can provide excellent foundation for postgraduate studies like Visual Culture Studies & Museum Studies which offers specialized topics like archival research methods & semiotics respectively.