This review questions Maurice Berger´s assertion that “white [museum] curators, administrators, and patrons” seldom accept art outside the “mainstream” or art that “challenges dominant values.” Paradoxically, this quote supports the point of an article—Lisa C. Corrin´s “Mining the Museum”—rich in examples of exhibitions, curated by white artists and curators, and aimed at overcoming standard practices. Mainstream results from more white circles of power than the museum´s. Curators, administrators and patrons contribute to the mainstream by validating the intellectual and/or aesthetic value of art. But mainstream also arises, and even more powerfully, from art´s top values that auction houses, gallery owners, marketing experts, and private
Heritage is one of the most important factors that represents where a person came from. In “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, this short story characterizes not only the symbolism of heritage, but also separates the difference between what heritage really means and what it may be portrayed as. Throughout the story, it reveals an African-American family living in small home and struggling financially. Dee is a well-educated woman who struggles to understand her family's heritage because she is embarrassed of her mother and sister, Mama and Maggie. Unlike Dee, Mama and Maggie do not have an education, but they understand and appreciate their family's background. In “Everyday Use,” the quilts, handicrafts, and Dee’s transformation helps the reader interpret that Walker exposed symbolism of heritage in two distinctive point of views.
Kent Monkman is an artist of ‘Aboriginal and Irish descent’ (Filgiano) who was commissioned to create a large scale Acrylic on canvas, measuring 72” x 108”.“The Academy” is a parody piece which makes reference to art created in the European tradition, alongside Aboriginal art and artifacts. It hangs in the Museum Gallery alongside some of the very pieces that are featured within it. It’s as though Monkman is playfully gossiping about his neighbors in the Gallery, both figuratively and literally. While his work is significant enough to hang in the Gallery alongside these other masterworks, Monkman makes a tongue-in-cheek observation that Academy work has historically been regarded as the only legitimate Fine Art. Traditionally, Aboriginal Art and Artifacts have been confined to separate exhibits or ancillary displays, but never alongside classical European pieces. The piece makes reference to a vast...
The play “Permanent Collection” focuses on an African-American man who has just taken over an art museum named Sterling North. While digging through storage, he finds eight African sculpture pieces and wants to add them to the collection at the Morris Foundation on the campus of a college. The Director of Education Paul Barrow is hanging on to the words of Mr. Morris and his vision because he doesn’t want anything to change at the museum according to Mr. Morris’ will, which contributes to the title of the play “Permanent Collection.”
“Art Museums and the Ritual of Citizenship.” in Exhibiting Cultures. Eds. Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. Print.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art came about as an idea from Jon Jay in Paris, France in 1866 with the idea of “national institution gallery of art” within the United States. Once this idea was proposed, it was immediately moved forward with his return to the United States. With the help of the Union League Club in NY they began to acquire civic leaders, businessmen, artists, and collectors who aided in the creation of the museum. For over 140 years, the visitors who go here have received everything the mission of the institution states.
One pleasant afternoon, my classmates and I decided to visit the Houston Museum of Fine Arts to begin on our museum assignment in world literature class. According to Houston Museum of Fine Art’s staff, MFAH considers as one of the largest museums in the nation and it contains many variety forms of art with more than several thousand years of unique history. Also, I have never been in a museum in a very long time especially as big as MFAH, and my experience about the museum was unique and pleasant. Although I have observed many great types and forms of art in the museum, there were few that interested me the most.
Professor LaFleur in lecture on November 11 mentioned, “Museums were extremely powerful in shaping the way people saw the world” (Lecture 007). This same reasoning is why Fusco and Pena embark on this ethnographic journey. By displaying “A Savage Performance”, we see that they are subverting the past notions of ethnography. Ethnographic museums as the ones Sara Baartman was displayed in served a purpose and created a certain kind of discourse. “Discourse do not simply reflect reality, or innocently designate objects; rather they constitute them in specific contexts according to particular relations of power” (Lidchi, p. 185). Lidchi goes on to say that ethnography was created by the dominant culture in the imperial c...
With the advent of Museum Construction, it was as if these structures were being filled almost religiously to educate individuals on art. These pieces of art were filling palaces, homes, and other public structures to educate individuals on the wealth of the beneficiaries as well as the theme of the art that the walls would contain. Since that time, museum architectural designs and the art held within the structures have changed very drastically. There has been a large shift recently in the museum community with individuals coming to art museums not out of their drive to be educated and enlightened, but rather to be entertained. This shows that individuals are choosing to visit, rather than being forced to out of what many may view as intellectual obligation.
Entertainment and art has always been an American past time, people are very curious beings and what better entertainment is there than exploring the lives of other people? The entertaining showman, Phineas Taylor Barnum made this possible when he opened his own museum in 1841. The American Museum was located in New York City and quickly became an extremely popular place for all kinds of people to visit to be dazzled by the amazing and unknown. The exhibits were full of facts and fantasy that was exceedingly amusing to all Americans of the mid-1800’s. Barnum’s famous hub of chaos was forced to close down due to the colossal fire in New York City on Thursday, July 13th, 1865. During the twenty years the five story building stood there, it became the most visited place in America displaying the most interesting things in the world (American Social History Productions).
For the recent last decades, art market has become very popular with a boom in total sale revenue worldwide. People start to participate and pay attention to the art world more interactively and frequently. For example, art institutions have gained more admissions than ever before; museum visits surged globally and more people are willing to pursue an art-related career. Generally speaking, art world is broader than the art market. The art world is a overlapping subcultures held by a belief in art. They spread out globally but cluster in art capitals such as New York, London, Los Angeles, Berlin, and the emerging market such as Hong Kong, Beijing and Dubai. The market refers to the people who participate in the art business transaction that is artists, first and second market dealers, curators, collectors and auction houses experts. However in the business operation side, dealers are responsible for channeling and deflecting the power of all the other players, while critics, curators and artists are not directly involved in commercial activities on a regular basis. Most importantly, the art world is a sphere that the cultures and art works themselves play the most fundamental parts while wealth and powers also have a crucial influence on market.
A museum gives us insight on the culture from an out standing point of view, and the things we are shown are supposed to be looked at from the outside. The people who decided what things to exhibit did not belong to that community saw it, and decided what they considered is different to what we are used to, and what we would be interested in learning from that. The display of things in a Museum are things that we look at as something that is outside from normal. In contrast to the movie or movies, where scenes substantially show how the person felt and dealt with situations and tools from their own perspective, with their own knowledge and experience and through different means such as real images, sounds, language and others produces a different knowledge on the racial discourse. When looking at exhibitions in museums the other culture is unknown, and almost uncomfortable to us, but in movies we can be standing in their
I'm walking through the museum, quiet as usual with her by my side. Isabelle has a tight grip on my hand and i know that it’s a warning, i'm not allowed to mess up or i’ll regret it deeply later when we’re alone. It may seem pathetic but I don’t have a very healthy relationship with her and i’m the one who has the worse side of the stick. I'm constantly being verbally and physically put down and once we aren't alone she puts on a “Perfect wife” act, like none of it happens. It’s not like it matter anyways, i deserve to be treated this way. My train of thought is interrupted by a loud sound coming from one of the rooms nearby in the museum, it resembles broken glass. People began rushing out of the room where the
‘Savage Beauty’ was an exhibition that pushed the boundaries of museology, in its artistic, social and critical undertakings. The questions brought to bear by the exhibition of contemporary art and culture in various situations is something I am interested in researching further with a degree in curating.
Many theories have been developed over the years in attempt to explain how and why the human race interacts in the ways that they do. One of these theories is called the social construction of reality. Also referred to as social constructionism, this theory explains how humans come to understand knowledge through the sociological and communicative developments of these jointly constructed disciplines. Social constructionism became famous in the United States when Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann wrote the book entitled, The Social Construction of Reality in 1966. In their theory, Berger and Luckmann assert that all knowledge, including the most basic of everyday reality, is derived from social interactions.
Museums are shaped by society as a place where it is known to be silent. As soon as people that visit the museum enter, they are greeted by silence, which is only followed by the footsteps of people walking on the marble floor. This silence is constructed upon the steady historical conventions and veneration for the remembrance, education, and facts museums provide that cast the museum niche in society. Although the museum does become a part of society, it does not mean society should become a part of the museum. If a museum commercializes itself, society will destroy what the museum stands for. A museum is not a place that should be seen as a circus, a freak show, or a theatre. A museum should be viewed as what it is, a place where knowledge