From Museum Critique to the Critical Museum

by Piotr Piotrowski, Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius

Overview

Since the late nineteenth century, museums have been cited as tools of imperialism and colonialism, as strongholds of patriarchalism, masculinism, homophobia and xenophobia, and accused both of elitism and commercialism. But, could the museum absorb and benefit from its critique, turning into a critical museum, into the site of resistance rather than ritual? This book looks at the ways in which the museum could use its collections, its cultural authority, its auratic space and resources to give voice to the underprivileged, and to take an active part in contemporary and at times controversial issues.

Drawing together both major museum professionals and academics, it examines the theoretical concept of the critical museum, and uses case studies of engaged art institutions from different parts of the world. It reaches beyond the usual focus on western Europe, America, and ‘the World’, including voices from, as well as about, eastern European museums, which have rarely been discussed in museum studies books so far.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472422378
Publisher:	Ashgate Publishing Ltd
Publication date:	07/28/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius is a Freelance Art Historian and Associate Lecturer in History of Art in the Department of History of Art at Birkbeck College. Before her arrival in the UK in 1993, she was Curator of Italian Paintings (1981-90) and Chief Curator at The National Museum in Warsaw (1992-93). She was called back to this Museum to work as its Deputy Director (2009-11). Among her publications are National Museum in Warsaw Guide: Galleries and Study Collections (2001) and Kantor was Here: Tadeusz Kantor in Great Britain (2011).

Piotr Piotrowski was Professor ordinarius in the Art History Department at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, which he chaired between 1999-2008. He was also the co-editor of the annual journal Artium Quaestiones (1994-2009), Director of the National Museum in Warsaw (2009-2010), and Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Museum in Poznań (1992-1997). Among his publications are In the shadow of Yalta: Art and the Avant-Garde in Eastern Europe (2009) and Art and Democracy in Post-Communist Europe (2012).

Table of Contents

Contents: Introduction: from museum critique to the critical museum, Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius and Piotr Piotrowski. Part I Histories: A very brief history of the art museum in the United States (focusing mainly but not exclusively on the nineteenth century), Alan Wallach; ‘The contemporary museum is a laboratory of knowledge’: the origins of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Russia, Andrzej Turowski; Wilhelm R. Valentiner’s Reshaping Museums in the Spirit of the New Age (1919) and its reception, Monika Flacke; Myth and reality of the White Cube, Charlotte Klonk; Jerzy Ludwiński's testing of the dysfunction of the museum: on the Museum of Current Art in Wrocław (1966), Magdalena Ziółkowska. Part II Tools: Objects, Space, Viewing Practices: Masterpieces and the critical museum, Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius; From the White Cube to a critical museography: the development of interrogative, plural and subjective museum discourses, J. Pedro Lorente; From the inside looking out: the possibility of a critical establishment, Penelope Curtis; Making the National Museum critical, Piotr Piotrowski; Historical space and critical museologies: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett; Museums that listen and care? Central Europe and critical museum discourse, Mária Orišková; Towards embodied, agonistic museum viewing practices in contemporary Manchester, England, Alpesh Kantilal Patel. Part III Critique: The context and practice of post-critical museology, Victoria Walsh; ‘Is the contemporary already too late?’ (Re-)producing criticality within the art museum, Jacob Birken; Neuromuseology, John Onians. Index.