Adage
ADAPT
Agnes Gund
Anne d'Harnoncourt
Anthony van Dyck
Antiquities trade
Aphorism
Art criticism
Art exhibition
Art history
Art museum
Auction
British Institution
Business ethics
Caspar David Friedrich
Category=GLZ
Chris Ofili
Cubism
Culture war
Curator
Damien Hirst
Distrust
Elliot Eisner
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
Equal opportunity
Facsimile
Fraud
George Soros
Gerhard Richter
Glenn D. Lowry
High Renaissance
Iconoclasm
In the Car
Institution
Iris Murdoch
J. Paul Getty Museum
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
James Cuno
Kirk Varnedoe
Layoff
Leonardo da Vinci
Looting
Masaccio
Meyer Schapiro
Michael Baxandall
Modern art
Museum
Neil MacGregor
Obscenity
Painting (Blue Star)
Paul Gauguin
Pornography
Public sphere
Renaissance art
Richard Benefield
Roberta Smith
Sense of Place
Sex scandal
Smithsonian Institution
Stephen Greenblatt
Still life
Tax
The Great Exhibition
The New York Review of Books
Thomas Bernhard
Thomas Krens
Tintoretto
Titian
Trade fair
Vatican Museums
Western painting
Work of art
Product details
- ISBN 9780691127811
- Weight: 369g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 03 Oct 2006
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
During the economic boom of the 1990s, art museums expanded dramatically in size, scope, and ambition. They came to be seen as new civic centers: on the one hand as places of entertainment, leisure, and commerce, on the other as socially therapeutic institutions. But museums were also criticized for everything from elitism to looting or illegally exporting works from other countries, to exhibiting works offensive to the public taste. Whose Muse? brings together five directors of leading American and British art museums who together offer a forward-looking alternative to such prevailing views. While their approaches differ, certain themes recur: As museums have become increasingly complex and costly to manage, and as government support has waned, the temptation is great to follow policies driven not by a mission but by the market. However, the directors concur that public trust can be upheld only if museums continue to see their core mission as building collections that reflect a nation's artistic legacy and providing informed and unfettered access to them.
The book, based on a lecture series of the same title held in 2000-2001 by the Harvard Program for Art Museum Directors, also includes an introduction by Cuno and a fascinating--and surprisingly frank--roundtable discussion among the participating directors. A rare collection of sustained reflections by prominent museum directors on the current state of affairs in their profession, this book is without equal. It will be read widely not only by museum professionals, trustees, critics, and scholars, but also by the art-loving public itself.
James Cuno is President and Director of the Art Institute of Chicago; Philippe de Montebello is Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Glenn D. Lowry is Director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Neil MacGregor is Director of the British Museum, London; John Walsh is Director Emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and James N. Wood is Former President and Director of the Art Institute of Chicago.
