Why don't art schools teach presentation?

As you may recall, I was embroiled in a framing conundrum last week. In case you didn't read last weeks posting (which is most people) I had my work accepted in a fairly prestigious state art competition. The deadline to deliver works was this past Friday (7-31-09). My entries were of an unusual size and required special order frames. I had prepared for this; I placed my order at the beginning of July. However they weren't delivered as of last week. I went into panic mode and began looking at alternate framing methods. Last weeks posting gave a pretty good indication of my frustrations. This weeks posting is all about the aftermath. The images below illustrate the state of my studio area post-framing mode.


























As you can see, it's quite a mess. I was working on constructing frames as soon as I got off work, around 5PM, well into the night. In the end my frames arrived Friday afternoon, and the museum hosting the competition agreed to allow me to deliver my works on Saturday. If they hadn't allowed me to do this, I'm not sure what I would have done.

All this lead me to reflect on my art school experiences. I was never taught about presentation. My classes covered techniques, styles, different types of media, and plenty of art history. However, presentation of our work was something that was never really discussed. Now, having taught art classes at two different colleges and familiarizing myself with art school curricula I have to ask; why is presentation not central to the program? As far as I know this is not taught in any art school. I think this is an interesting question. I will be researching this, and I may post what I find out. If any of you have an opinion, or are knowledgeable on this subject please leave your comments. I hope to do a follow-up on this issue in the future. See you next week.