Art and Its Publics: Museum Studies at the Millennium

Art and its Publics explores the interface between the art object, its site of display, and the viewing public.

Engines of democracy at their inception during the French Revolution, public museums have since fostered the democratization of art. As museum–going has increased dramatically in recent years, the question of whose museum? and how museums construct and engage their publics has taken on added urgency. The essays in Art and its Publics present a cross–section of current issues, with contributions from both sides of the Atlantic and from museum professionals as well as academics. Essayists tackle issues confronting the museum community and seek to further the debate between theory and practice around the most pressing of contemporary concerns.

List of Illustrations.

List of Contributors.

Series Editor′s Preface.

1. Introduction.

2. A Brief History of the Art Museum Public: Andrew McClellan (Tufts University).

3. Having One s Tate and Eating It: Transformations of the Museum in a Hypermodern Era: Nick Prior (University of Edinburgh).

4. Museums: Theory, Practice and Illusion: Danielle Rice (Philadelphia Museum of Art).

5. Norman Rockwell at the Guggenheim: Alan Wallach (College of William and Mary).

6. The Return to Curiosity: Shifting Paradigms in Contemporary Museum Display: Stephen Bann (Bristol University).

7. Museum Sight: Anne Higonnet (Wellesley College).

8. Sacred to Profane and Back Again: Ivan Gaskell (Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University).

9. From Theory to Practice: Exhibiting African Art in the Twenty–first Century: Christa Clarke (Neuberger Museum of Art, SUNY).

10. Reframing Public Art: Audience Use, Interpretation, and Appreciation: Harriet F. Senie (CUNY).

Bibliography.

Index.

Andrew McClellan is Associate Professor of Art History at Tufts University. He is author of Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth–century Paris (1999).

"This book deserves a place on the museum–studies reading list and on the bookshelf of anyone seriously interested in the cultural place of museums today. Its lucid, observant essays take an informed look at a now ubiquitous institution, offering new points of view about the nature of the museum experience. Art and its Publics provides a welcome corrective to the presumption that art museums are monolithic institutions that narrowly control the perceptions and discussions of their visitors." Diana Strazdes, University of California, Davis

"Art and its Publics launches a much–needed exploration of art′s audiences beginning with McClellan′s A Brief History of the Art Museum Public, an essay which is well worth the book′s price alone." Jeffrey Abt, Wayne State University

"A stimulating and provocative review of the range of diverse exhibition strategies used by art museum curators as they endeavor to engage multiple audiences in different aspects of art." Eilean Hooper–Greenhill, University of Leicester