Reconstructing Exhibitions in Art Institutions spans exhibition histories as anti-apartheid activism within South African community arts; collectivities and trade unions in Argentina; Civil Rights movements and Black communities in Baltimore; institutional self-critique within the neoliberal museum; reframing feminisms in USA; and revisiting Cold War Modernisms in Eastern Europe among other themes. An interdisciplinary project with a global reach, this edited volume considers the theme of exhibitions as political resistance as well as cultural critique from global perspectives including South Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, USA and West Europe. The book includes contributions by ten authors from the fields of art history, social sciences, anthropology, museum studies, provenance research, curating and exhibition histories. The edited volume finally examines exhibition reconstructions both as a symptom of advanced capitalism, geopolitical dynamics and social uprisings, and as a critique of imperial and capitalist violence. Art historical areas covered in the book include conceptualism, minimalism, modern painting, global modernisms, archives and community arts. This volume will be of interest to a wide range of audiences including art historians, curators, gallery studies and museum professionals, and also to scholars and students from the fields of anthropology, ethnography, sociology, and history. It would also appeal to a general public with an interest in modern and contemporary art exhibitions.

Reconstructing Exhibitions in Art Institutions spans exhibition histories as anti-apartheid activism within South African community arts; collectivities and trade unions in Argentina; Civil Rights movements and Black communities in Baltimore; institutional self-critique within the neoliberal museum; reframing feminisms in USA; and revisiting Cold War Modernisms in Eastern Europe among other themes. An interdisciplinary project with a global reach, this edited volume considers the theme of exhibitions as political resistance as well as cultural critique from global perspectives including South Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, USA and West Europe. The book includes contributions by ten authors from the fields of art history, social sciences, anthropology, museum studies, provenance research, curating and exhibition histories. The edited volume finally examines exhibition reconstructions both as a symptom of advanced capitalism, geopolitical dynamics and social uprisings, and as a critique of imperial and capitalist violence. Art historical areas covered in the book include conceptualism, minimalism, modern painting, global modernisms, archives and community arts. This volume will be of interest to a wide range of audiences including art historians, curators, gallery studies and museum professionals, and also to scholars and students from the fields of anthropology, ethnography, sociology, and history. It would also appeal to a general public with an interest in modern and contemporary art exhibitions.

U.S. Museum Histories and the Politics of Interpretation is the first collection to examine the history of museums in the United States through the lens of the political and ideological underpinnings at the heart of exhibitions, collecting, and programming. Including contributions from historians, art historians, anthropologists, academics, and museum professionals, the book argues that museums have always been embedded in the politics and culture of their time – whether that means a reification of hegemonic notions of race, gender, and progress or a challenge to those normative structures. Contributions probe the political nature of collection and interpretation as concept and practice, and museum work as both reflective of and contributing to the politics and circulation of power in different historical moments. As a whole, the volume provides detailed readings of museums that demonstrate the ways in which these trusted cultural institutions have intervened in shifting concepts of nation, community, indigeneity, race, citizenship, inclusion, identity, localism, and memory. U.S. Museum Histories and the Politics of Interpretation makes arguments about the historically and politically rooted nature of cultural production in museums that apply to institutions across the globe. It is essential reading for students and scholars of museum studies, public history, cultural history, art history, and memory.

This book provides an in-depth and thematic analysis of socially engaged art in Mainland China, exploring its critical responses to and creative interventions in China’s top-down, pro-urban, and profit-oriented socioeconomic transformations. It focuses on the socially conscious practices of eight art professionals who assume the role of artist, critic, curator, educator, cultural entrepreneur, and social activist, among others, as they strive to expose the injustice and inequality many Chinese people have suffered, raise public awareness of pressing social and environmental problems, and invent new ways and infrastructures to support various underprivileged social groups.

This volume offers a comprehensive perspective on the relationship between the art scene and agencies of the state in countries of the region, throughout four consecutive yet highly diverse historical periods: from the period of state integration after World War I, through the communist era post 1945 and the time of political transformation after 1989, to the present-day globalisation (including counter-reactions to westernisation and cultural homogenisation). With twenty-three theoretically and/or empirically oriented articles by authors from sixteen countries (East Central Europe and beyond, including the United States and Australia), the book discusses interconnections between state policies and artistic institutions, trends and the art market from diverse research perspectives. The contributors explore subjects such as the impact of war on the formation of national identities, the role of artists in image-building for the new national states emerging after 1918, the impact of political systems on artists’ attitudes, the discourses of art history, museum studies, monument conservation and exhibition practices. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, cultural politics, cultural history, and East Central European studies and history.

This edited collection traces the impact of monographic exhibitions on the discipline of art history from the first examples in the late eighteenth century through the present. Roughly falling into three genres (retrospectives of living artists, retrospectives of recently deceased artists, and monographic exhibitions of Old Masters), specialists examine examples of each genre within their social, cultural, political, and economic contexts. Exhbitions covered include Nathaniel Hone’s 1775 exhibition, the Holbein Exhibition of 1871, the Courbet retrospective of 1882, Titian's exhibition in Venice, Poussin's Louvre retrospective of 1960, and El Greco's anniversaty exhibitions of 2014.

This volume, edited by Éva Forgács, with contributions from art historians from across Europe and the Americas, analyzes the artistic initiatives of the short time span between the end of World War II and the onset of the Cold War. In this moment, a new internationalism was anticipated by retrieving pre-war modernism, as well as creating the new era's new artistic lingua franca. The chapters include in-depth case studies that analyze the complex, often interconnected, projects throughout the world—South America and Eastern and Western Europe—that were soon ended by the Cold War.

Museums and Centers of Contemporary Art in Central Europe is a comprehensive study of the ecosystem of art museums and centers in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Focusing on institutions founded after 1989, the book analyses a thirty-year boom in art exhibition space in these regions, as well as a range of socio-political influences and curatorial debates that had a significant impact upon their development. Tracing the inspiration for the increase in art institutions and the models upon which these new spaces were based, Jagodzińska offers a unique insight into the history of museums in Central Europe. Providing analysis of a range of issues, including private and public patronage, architecture, and changing visions of national museums of art, the book situates these newly-founded institutions within their historical, political and museological contexts. Considering whether - and in what ways - they can be said to have a shared regional identity that is distinct from institutions elsewhere, this valuable contribution paints a picture of the region in its entirety from the perspective of new institutions of art. Offering the first comprehensive study on the topic, Museums and Centers of Contemporary Art in Central Europe should be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students engaged in the study of museums, art, history and architecture.

This interdisciplinary volume explores the role of culture in single-industry communities facing the loss of their major industry. In a series of innovative case studies extending from New Zealand and Slovenia to the contemporary Nordic and Baltic States, the contributors address a wide range of topical issues. These include the role of the community’s past as a marker of its newly reconstructed identity and the importance of local traditions, landscapes, and place-related memories in post-industrial communities formerly dependent on one single employer or industry. The empirical case studies emphasise the role of cultural memory and local identity as communal strategies of survival and perseverance in such places and provide fresh perspectives into this turn to culture. The four parts of the book address such topics as the symbolic governance of change, tradition as capital, narratives as collective memories, and post-Soviet transition in comparative perspective. The team of international contributors hails from Australia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, and Slovenia and represents the fields of sociology, cultural policy, cultural history, landscape studies, and geography.