Andrea Kirsh
Visiting Part-Time Lecturer – Museum Studies
Fine Arts Building, Rm. 264
Office: (856) 225-2897
Fax: (856) 225-6330
Email: andrea.kirsh@rutgers.edu
Biography
Andrea Kirsh is a generalist art historian with a long-time interest in questions of art conservation, artists’ materials and the physical examination of art.
She contributes regularly to Artblog www.theartblog.org, a Philadelphia-based web publication, and was co-author of the award-winning book, Seeing Through Paintings; Physical examination in art historical studies (Yale University Press, 2000). Kirsh has experience in administration and curatorial work at museums, art centers, and with a large public art program, in large museums and small, where she has performed all functions except that of a guard. Among the artists with whom she has worked are Chris Burden, Robert Arneson, Hans Haacke, William Wegman, Ned Smyth, Robert Irwin, Pat Oleszko, Ed Love, Nam June Paik, and Carrie Mae Weems.
She has been active in the College Art Association (CAA), where she served five years on the board, two as Vice President for External Affairs. She initiated a continuing series of workshops at the CAA annual meetings that bring artists and art historians together at a local museum, for discussions about art rather than slides.
Her knowledge of museum practices began as an undergraduate at Harvard University, where she spent two years doing research with the head of the conservation department at the Fogg Art Museum. She has taught graduate students at Georgetown University and the University of Delaware, and at Rutgers, Camden since 2008. A self-confessed museum junkie, she has made special trips to celebrate several museum openings, and much of her travels and spare time are spent in museums.