Concerned with the complex and sophisticated relationship between economics, social context, and aesthetics as represented in the contested space of the art gallery, this book raises the question of how artists must construe their work in relation to the gallery space and system.
A practical guide to creating successful learning experiences in museums and related institutions. Based on an understanding of museum learning as an experience that occurs within a personal, social, and physical context, it explores why, for whom, and how these contexts can be orchestrated in museum galleries with optimal results.
Using examples of indigenous models from Indonesia, the Pacific, Africa and Native North America, Kreps illustrates how the growing recognition of indigenous curation and concepts of cultural heritage preservation is transforming conventional museums.
A Companion to Museum Studies captures the multidisciplinary approaches to the study of the development, roles, and significance of museums in contemporary society. It is an indispensable reference for art historians, museum curators, and art and culture lovers.
Presents the multidisciplinary approach to the study of the development, roles, and significance of museums in contemporary society. This title examines the complexity of the museum from cultural, political, curatorial, historical and representational perspectives. It covers traditional subjects, such as space, display, and buildings.
The ecomuseum phenomenon has grown dramatically. There is no one ecomuseum model, but a philosophy that has been adapted and moulded for use in a variety of situations. This edition covers theories and practices that have resonance with ecomuseums, such as the notions of cultural landscapes, intangible cultural heritage, and biosphere reserves.
Calls for measures to broaden rather than restrict international access to antiquities. This book advocates restoration of the system under which source countries would share discovered artefacts in exchange for archaeological help, and argues that museums should be allowed reasonable ways to acquire undocumented antiquities.
Explaining and critically reviewing management procedures such as performance indicators and strategic planning, this book shows how techniques from mainstream management can be used to facilitate a holistic and professional approach to the business of conservation and collection preservation.
This title brings together studies of contemporary and historical museum exhibitions and contends that they are never, and never have been, above politics. In addition, it aims to chart the changing relationships between displays and their audience and to analyze the shift in styles.
The role of museums as mediators is assuming central importance around the world as museums react much more intensely to societal needs than they did in the past. This book addresses the question of national museums through international dialogue and exemplifies how the museum world has become internationalised.
Questions the origins, purpose, organisation, politics, narratives, philosophies, of national museums. This title includes a comparative analysis of national museums, and examines the past, present and the future of the national museum. It goes beyond individual histories of national museums and examines the phenomenon on a global scale.
It makes sense for institutions to digitally register their collections or company information. Office automation has been introduced in almost all museums in the Netherlands. This work describes how the Tropenmuseum has developed from a completely analogue institution to a museum where digitisation is central and forms part of the work processes.
Investigates the ways in which digital media may enhance the experience of the art-archive. This book discusses the challenges of the archive and the (art)museum in the age of digital media. It is based upon documentation from a research project, MAP - Media Art Platform, that drew upon the talents and collaboration of many institutions.
In this broadly conceived study Steven Conn examines the development of American museums across the twentieth century with a historian's attention and a critic's eye. He focuses on an array of museum types and asks illuminating questions about the relationship between museums and American cultural life.
New Museum Theory and Practice is an original collection of essays with a unique focus: the contested politics and ideologies of museum exhibition. Contains 12 original essays that contribute to the field while creating a collective whole for course use. Discusses theory through vivid examples and historical overviews.
Provides a basic guide to various aspects of museum work and staff experience from museum organization, through collections management and conservation, to audience development and education. Organized on a modular basis, with over 100 units, this reference is useful for museum professionals, and museum and heritage studies students.
Contains articles selected from across the breadth of museum disciplines, which are linked by a logical narrative. This work seeks to introduce classic pieces and contrast them with articles which reveal grounded practice. It is intended for students and museum practitioners involved in the field of material culture in museums.
Argues that modern nation-states have at best a dubious connection with the ancient cultures they claim to represent, and that archeology has been misused by nationalistic identity politics. This book explains why exhibition is essential to responsible acquisitions, and why our shared art heritage trumps nationalist agendas.
The international controversy over who "owns" antiquities has pitted museums against archaeologists and source countries where ancient artifacts are found. This book assembles preeminent museum directors, curators, and scholars to explain for themselves what's at stake in this struggle - and why the museums' critics couldn't be more wrong.
Drawing upon a range of professional and theoretical sources, this book offers a history of museum computing. It attempts to explain a series of tensions between curatorship and the digital realm and reveals how the sector has experienced a broadening of participation, and a widening of creative horizons.
An engaging study of a great national institution. Essays explore the changing roles of museums and the perceived public role of a museum of science and technology. Illuminates the ways in which we think about the collecting and display of objects and the often difficult relations between the state, business and industry, and museum funding.
Focuses on heritage from below in a field where the literature on the relationship between heritage and identity has, rightly, been focused on national identity. This title discusses the contemporary manifestations and the theoretical structuring framework of the idea of heritage from below.
Museums are much more than scholarly, cultural archives. They reflect global economics and local politics. They shape our public culture. This book reveals how the museum is evolving as a cross-disciplinary, self-consciously political, and often avowedly self-reflexive institution.
Takes the reader on a journey from ethnological artifacts to kitsch. Posing the question, 'What does it mean to show?' this title explores the agency of display in a variety of settings: museums, festivals, world's fairs, historical re-creations, memorials, and tourist attractions.
Presents a comprehensive assessment of the display of Maori culture since the nineteenth century. This book traces the long journey from curio to specimen, artefact, art and taonga (treasure). It draws on research to tell the remarkable story of Maori resistance to, involvement in, and eventual capture of the display of their culture.
Museums are rarely acknowledged in the global discussion of climate change, environmental degradation, the inevitability of depleted fossil fuels, and the myriad local issues concerning the well-being of particular communities - suggesting the irrelevance of museums as social institutions. This book explores the meaning and role of museums.
The natural history museum is a place where the line between "high" and "low" culture effectively vanishes - where our awe of nature, our taste for the bizarre and our thirst for knowledge all blend together. But, as this text shows, there is more going on in these institutions than just smart fun.
What goes on behind closed doors at museums? How are decisions about exhibitions made and who, or what, really makes them? This book answers these searching questions by giving a privileged look behind the scenes at the Science Museum in London. The author shows in vivid detail how exhibitions are created and how public culture is produced.
Museums are much more than scholarly, cultural archives. They reflect global economics and local politics. They shape our public culture. This book reveals how the museum is evolving as a cross-disciplinary, self-consciously political, and often avowedly self-reflexive institution.
A sampler of the variety of material to be found in the new Museum of Scotland, emphasising some of the most fascinating aspects of these striking collections. Descriptions of galleries and displays, suggested routes and not to be missed features assure the reader a well informed visit.
Focusing on the role of national art galleries in continental Europe, England and Scotland, this book explores the interrelationship between artistic and exhibitionary forms, as well as between power and governance in those places where the roots of modern culture were being laid most visibly.
Explores the museums as a site of representation, identity and memory, and considers how it can influence its community. This book focuses on the museum as an institution, and its social and cultural setting, and examines how museums use their roles as informers and educators to empower, or to ignore, communities.
In today's hectic and challenging world of website management, it is increasingly important for cultural heritage institutions to make the most out of their presence online. This book provides a complete guide for any institution looking to build or maintain a cultural heritage web presence. It also includes examples and case studies.
Answering key questions in the study of how museums communicate, this book provides a set of frameworks to investigate the complexities of communication in museums. It argues that communication contributes to what a museum is, who it relates to, and what it stands for. It is useful for students of museum studies and communications studies.
A comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of approaches to museums and their relation to history, culture and philosophy. Central themes discussed include: issue oriented contexts in museology; states of "nature"; the status of nations; history, memory and other locations; and arts and crafts.
While some view strategic planning with trepidation, it is one of a museum's strongest tools for improving quality, motivating staff and Board members, adapting to environmental changes, and preparing the groundwork for future initiatives. This work offers methods for successful strategic planning in museums.
Museum Administration is the handbook for students, new professionals, and anyone who needs to know what goes into running a museum. The authors cover everything from basic organization to human resource management, with case studies and exercises to help reinforce the text. Includes an extensive bibliography and appendices.
An interdisciplinary and international collection of essays that illuminates the importance and effects of indigenous perspectives for museums. It challenges and complicates the traditionally close colonialist connections between museums and nation-states and urge more activist and energized roles for museums in the decades ahead.
Art and Design for All reassembles some of the original core collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum to focus on its visionary approach and function as a role model for many other institutions around the world. This beautifully illustrated study places Prince Albert at the helm of the South Kensington project.
Combines the history of museums since the eighteenth century with an examination of the function of museums and museum workers in modern society. This book is intended for those seeking to enter to the museum profession and for established professionals looking for an expanded understanding of their own discipline.
Updated to reflect the latest developments in twenty-first century museum scholarship, the new Second Edition of Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts presents a comprehensive collection of approaches to museums and their relation to history, culture and philosophy.
Citing a range of examples, this title shows the ways in which artists have been influenced by museum systems and made their works into simulations of the museum. It also shows how artists have questioned the role of museums, observed their practices, intervened in them and helped to redefine them.
Exhibiting the largest hand-made carpet collection in the world (1, 700 pieces), the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts is a unique place to visit in Istanbul, Turkey. This album presents some of the best samples from among a large inventory of forty thousand pieces of Islamic art that represent Seljuk and Ottoman empires.
A companion publication to the installation 'The Consolations of Museology' by Michael Lee Hong Hwee, that proposes ten hypothetical museums realised as hand-made books that provide solace to problems of human existence by way of philosophical reflections and papercrafting of space.
Interrogates the thinking, policies and practices that underpin the educational role of the museum. This book unravels the complex relationship of museums with their publics, and discusses the challenges and the debates that have resulted. It analyses the implications of audience development and broadening public access.
Museums were originally established as centres of high culture, intended to showcase the achievements of modern civilization. In the late 1990's this ideological role has been questioned. This book argues that museums provide the best means with which to understand and interpret popular culture.
* Examines the most important issues at the heart of contemporary debates in museum studies. * Includes original essays by noted artists, curators, and art historians. * Engages with vital issues in the practice of art-making and art-exhibiting. * Edited by the world-renowned art historian and author, Griselda Pollock.
The prioritisation of learning in museums in the context of demands for social justice and cultural democracy combined with cultural policy based on economic rationalism forces museums to review their educational purposes, redesign their pedagogies and account for their performance. This book reveals the power of museum pedagogy.
Examines the origins and development of museums in six major regions of the British Empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This book analyzes museum histories in major centers in Canada, South Africa, Australia, India and South-East Asia, setting them into the economic and social contexts of the cities in which they were located.
Digital technologies are playing an instrumental role in transforming the contemporary museum today. This book is designed around contextual studies - of the themes of virtuality and the art of exhibition, and topics relating to digital mediation, spatial practice, the multimedial museum and curatorial design - and exhibitions.
Discusses the collections of the Tropenmuseum and the histories and stories that accompany them. This book elucidates the often hidden backgrounds of a museum collection, discussing objects within their original context, social histories and their contemporary meaning.
In recent years, museums have been under attack, with critics arguing that they are little more than relics and promoters of imperialism. Could it be that the encyclopedic museum has outlived its usefulness? In this book, the author, president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago, replies with a resounding "No".
Explores the ways in which museums are shaped and configured and how they themselves attempt to shape and change the world around them. This volume includes topics such as: disciplinary practices, ethnic representation, postcolonial politics, economic aspiration, social reform, indigenous models, conceptions of history and urban regeneration.
Details the origin, history and the importance of seventeen government museums of Rajasthan. This title covers museums that include those of Ahar, Ajmer, Alwar, Amber, Bharatpur, Bikaner, Chittorgarh, Dungarpur, Jaisalmer, Jhalawar, Jodhpur, Kota, Mount Abu, Pali, Sikar, Udaipur and Virat Nagar.
By exploring the processes of collecting, which challenge the bounds of normally acceptable practice, this book debates the practice of collecting 'difficult' objects, from a historical and contemporary perspective; and discusses the acquisition of objects related to war and genocide, and those purchased from the internet...
Presents an overview of object handling, in museums, from both historical and scientific perspectives. This book aims to establish a framework for understanding the role of object handling for learning, enjoyment, and health. It is suitable for students and professionals of museology or cultural heritage.
Presenting the knowledge of museum learning, this work aims to promote effective programs and exhibitions, identify promising approaches for future research, and develop strategies for implementing and sustaining connections between research and practice in the museum community.
Offers information about objects and people in museums and galleries. This book addresses fundamental issues of human sensory, emotional and aesthetic experience of objects. It is divided into three sections - Objects, Engagements, and Interpretations. It examines materiality and other perceptual and ontological qualities of objects themselves.
By examining the social conditions of museum practices, this book shows that cultivated taste is not a natural gift but a socially inculcated disposition which is distributed unevenly, and which predisposes some to distinguish themselves through their love of art, while others are deprived of it.
Based on case studies from Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, the overall findings are illustrative of narratives and images common to museums and the media throughout the world. They aim to challenge political rhetoric and populist media imagery and consider what forms of dissent are likely to be sustained...
In this book, leading researchers from a wide range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences reflect critically on the historical, cultural, ethical and scientific dimensions of repatriation. Through various case studies they consider the impact of repatriation...
Drawing together articles on theoretical and practice-based developments in the field, this book investigates the linked areas of management and marketing in the museum. The articles deal with the museum context of management and how marketing and management practices must take account of the specifics of the museum and the not-for-profit ethos.
John Cotton Dana (1856-1929) started out as a reform-minded librarian intent on making libraries into engines of education, hence of opportunity, for women, workers and the business community. This book offers an account of Dana's founding of the Newark Museum and his radical exhibitions of items of mass manufacture.
Much work is required to ensure the well-being of the manuscripts in the care of our libraries, archives and other collections and the regular seminars in Copenhagen provide a good opportunity for conservators, archivists, librarians and those who work with manuscripts to meet and discuss their problems. The book contains a list of manuscripts.
Attempts to point the way towards a sustainable future for museums by examining institutions that have found creative ways to attain a socially responsive model for cultural resource management. This title features articles which act as the starting points for any discussion on what museums have been and what they should strive to be.