Wonderful essays by a first-rate scholar

books:


	• Exhibiting Contradiction: Essays on the Art Museum in the United States Alan Wallach University of Massachusetts Press, 1998 - 152 pages average customer review:based on 1 review view larger image
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Wonderful essays by a first-rate scholar

"Exhibiting Contradictions" is a terrific collection. It may well be unique in its field, moreover, for containing NO academic jargon. No sites are contested, no subject positions are occupied. Amazing! The clear writing makes it an excellent book both for specialists and for those with a general interest in art and art history, the changing role of museums, and the quote-unquote politicization of art. My favorite essays was the one on the exhibit of Art about the American West at the Smithsonian a few years ago, which caused such a huge flap because it challenged the myth of the Romance of the West. I also was fascinated by the essay on plaster-cast museums, a now forgotten institution of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century. But the whole collection is very satisfying, full of ideas and knowledge. Wallach has very interesting things to say about the role of the museum in contemporary life -- part shopping mall, part leisure-time scene , part--still! -- otherworldly repository of the Timeless and Eternal.

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A leading scholar of art, art history, and American studies considers the way art museums have depicted American society and the American past. In closely focused and often controversial essays, Alan Wallach explores the opposing ideologies that drove the development of the American art museum in the 19th century and the tensions and contradictions characteristic of recent museum history. 40 illustrations.