Museum culture : histories, discourses, spectacles

Book

Museum culture : histories, discourses, spectacles / Daniel J. Sherman and Irit Rogoff, editors.

Sherman, Daniel J. (Added Author). Rogoff, Irit. (Added Author).

Summary:

Museums display much more than artifacts; Museum Culture makes us on a tour through the complex of ideas, values and symbols that pervade and shape the practice of exhibiting today. Bringing together a broad range of perspectives from history, art history, critical theory and sociology, the contributors to this new collection argue that museums have become a central institution and metaphor in contemporary society. Discussing exhibition histories and practice in Western Europe, the former Soviet Union, Israel and the United States, the authors explore the ways in which museums assign meaning to art through various kinds of exhibitions and display strategies, examining the political implications of these strategies and the forms of knowledge they invoke and construct. The collection also discusses alternative exhibition forms, the involvement of some museums with the more spectacular practices of mass media culture, and looks at how museums construct their public.

Record details

ISBN: 0816619514
ISBN: 9780816619511
ISBN: 0816619530
ISBN: 9780816619535
Physical Description: xx, 301 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.
Publisher: Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, ©1994.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Introduction : frameworks for critical analysis / Daniel J. Sherman and Irit Rogoff -- The German Art Museum and the history of the nation / Detlef Hoffmann -- The Whitechapel picture exhibitions and the politics of seeing / Seth Koven -- "An elite experience for everyone" : art museums, the public, and cultural literacy / Vera L. Zolberg -- Identity as self-discovery : the ecomuseum in France / Dominique Poulot -- With open doors : museums and historical narratives in Israel's public space / Ariella Azoulay -- The museum as metaphor in nineteenth-century France / Chantal Georgel -- Quatremére/Benjamin/Marx : art museums, aura, and commodity fetishism / Daniel J. Sherman -- The struggle against the museum ; or, the display of art in totalitarian space / Boris Groys -- "Degenerate art" and documenta I : modernism ostracized and disarmed / Walter Grasskamp -- The times and spaces of history : representation, Assyria, and the British museum / Frederick N. Bohrer -- From ruins to debris : the feminization of fascism in Germany-History museums / Irit Rogoff -- A new center : the National Museum of Women in the Arts / Anne Higonnet -- Selling nations : international exhibitions and cultural diplomacy / Brian Wallis.