Positions available at Zeitz MOCAA

• Curatorial Assistants

Job Description

Job Title: Curatorial Assistant
Department: Curatorial
Duration: 12 Months
Start Date: Immediate
Salary: Salary up to R120,000 per annum (including overtime benefits), less statutory deductions such as Pay as You Earn, Unemployment Insurance Fund Contributions, Health Insurance, and any other government mandated deductions.

Background

The Curatorial Training Program, offered through the Centre for Curatorial Excellence at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), provides practising professionals or recent graduates the benefit of gaining practical curatorial experience and skills by participating in all components of a functioning contemporary art museum. The programme provides an intensive period of intellectual stimulation through individual research and dialogue with colleagues, artists, collectors and art professionals.

Over 50 International Counsellors along with Zeitz MOCAA staff teach the Curatorial Training Programme and visits to artists’ studios, commercial galleries, conferences, and lectures are central to the programme. Upon completion of the 12-month program, the Curatorial Assistants are prepared for a career working as a curator, collections manager, conservator, development officer, or museum educator in a museum, commercial art gallery, publication, foundation, or corporate collection.

Purpose of the Job

The Curatorial Assistants work with the curatorial team to realise exhibitions and programmes. Through this process they are exposed to all components of museum practice, engaging with the curatorial department, institutional advancement and external affairs, collections management, art education, conservation, marketing, PR, and operations.

The museum director leads workshops and seminars on a variety of topics concerning museum practice. Topics discussed are: artists represented in the museum collection, recent thematic debates in contemporary art, philosophical and aesthetic considerations for exhibitions within a museum or gallery environment, methodology for guided tours, climate control and lux levels, conservation and archiving, drawing up condition reports and loan request forms, auction house procedures, production and dissemination of publicity materials, cataloguing, photographic documentation of artwork for catalogues and museum and insurance records, researching provenance of artworks, as well as copyright procedure for the reproduction of artworks.

The Curatorial Assistants are involved in various aspects of the museum, from organizing and producing Zeitz MOCAA’s public programming, including lectures, museum tours and seminars, to hosting visiting museum and special interest groups, and generating educational projects for the local community. After becoming acquainted with the museum, they conduct guided tours independently. Participants benefit from interaction with the public through front-desk duty.

The Curatorial Assistants must have a passion for innovative contemporary art practices and discourses; knowledge of the themes defining the discipline locally and globally; an interest in the history of contemporary art and its interpretation, production, and care; a desire to critically engage with the discipline; and knowledge of the major developments in museology.

As a cutting-edge equal opportunity institution, Zeitz MOCAA celebrates diversity in all its forms including gender, race, creed, and orientation. To apply, please email a letter of motivation, CV, two references, a scan of South African ID or passport, and two writing examples focusing on visual art or design to careers@zeitzmocaa.museum by Thursday, 31 May 2018.