A recent CBS Sunday Morning segment highlighted the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition, “Framed,” curated by Tara Contractor ’13.
Contractor is the assistant curator of European art at the museum, where she has worked for the past four years. Rather than solely the art itself, Contractor focused this latest exhibition on the frames around the art and the frame’s “role as a mediator between the painting and the environment,” she explains in the interview.
When wealthy Renaissance patrons started wanting to own art in their homes, rather than see it in church, frames became more prevalent, Contractor shares. These frames became a status symbol, sometimes costing more than the painting inside the frame. The exhibit reframes the experience of a museum with “twice as much art as meets the eye, twice as many things to look at and appreciate,” Contractor says.
Watch the segment on Youtube.