Museum Studies Flashcards
Stephen Weil
Museums as temples and forums
Alex Marshall
Issues regarding the definition of a museum (a lot of people quit)
Jasmine Liu
ICOM’s initial definition of a museum (turned mission statement) and final definition
Peter Vergo
The new museology and the dissatisfaction with the old museuology
Saloni Mathur
Growth of museums, their collaboration with corporations, and colonial lens of collecting
Andrew McLellan
Museum plans for Abu Dhabi, the economic and cultural benefits
Elizabeth Rodini
History of the art museum, Wunderkammer -> colonial plunder -> white cube museums
Ross Parry
Thresholds
What they look like, their role, multiple with the emergence of technology
Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach
Universal survey museum
Past examples, the Louvre, focus of survey museums, universal survey museums in America
LACMA reveals new building
Museum is one level to make all art equal, less space for art, rejects white cube museum
Elizabeth Rodini
The Louvre
Founding, initially for the elite, revolutionaries wanted control, Napoleon used it as a trophy case, African objects originally rejected
Lise Ragbir
Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s music video
Perpetuates idea that art is a luxury
People of color have low turn out rates to museums, but rates can be increased
Holland Cutter
Louvre Abu Dhabi
The architecture, multicultural environment, critics the museum saying it failed by exploiting migrant workers
Ralph Rugoff
Museum of Jurassic Technology
Breaches our contracts with museums, we assume museums are teaching us the truth, but after experiencing the MJT our blind trust in museums is taken away
Museum mixes topics that are not usually mixed such as religion and science
Video
Museum of Jurassic Technology
Challenging universal survey narratives that assert the truth, make sure question why we trust museums
Svetlana Alpers
Museum effect
Museums put up objects of visual interest and may not be the best places to each about the culture of objects , objects in the museums become art when they are placed there
Michael Baxandall
Museum as a field of play
Three key players: the maker, exhibitor, and viewer
Object label relationship is important, it explains the objects’ stories
James Clifford
Museums as contact zones
Contact zones are places where different cultures meet and come into contact with one another, there is usually a power difference
Objects mean different things to different people
Johanna Drucker
Explanatory narrative of a utopian virtual museum
Virtual museums can allow for people to view many different arts from all over the world from their own houses/schools
Michael Kimmelman
Quai Branly is described as dark and scary with lots of plants everywhere
A lot of colonialism present in the objects, none of the ways the objects were acquired are addressed
People from the cultures of the objects are not involved in the display or education about the objects
Sally Price
Quai Branly has impressive attendance at special exhibits but the main museum itself has not done that well
Main museum has a lot of criticism, used primitivism, and created a new-colonial list feel with the layout of the museum
Mark O’Neill
Critique of the British Museum statement on Universal Museums
Universal museums should expose their history of collecting objects (colonialism)
BM has a superiority complex in contact zones, they claim universality
Wants development of universal normative values but to response cultural traditions
Michael Wise
The museum in Greece made for the Parthenon marbles
Built spaces for the marbles and want the BM to give them back
Marbles are fundamental for the new Greek government
Catherine Hickley
Digital inventory of the Benin bronzes
Other museums committed to physically loaning the Parthenon marbles on a rotating basis, but not permanently
Bringing the bronzes back together would allow them to read like a book
Thomas McEvilley
Primitivism in the MOMA
The museum attempts to revalidate classical modernist by bringing in foreign culture
Counter argument he has is that primitivism actually invalidates modern art and shows its subject to external causation
