Synopsis
This book engages with the current debates surrounding the areas of art practice, curation, museology and the art market, by focusing on the changing roles of contemporary art's key institutions. It provides a cogent and accessible critique of the roles played by a variety of art institutions, from galleries and museums to commissioning agencies and funding bodies. Contributors give an international scope to the book's subject with essays from leading critics, curators and directors from institutions in the United States, such as Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museum of Fine Art, Boston, and European institutions such as Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Tate Modern, London, and Moderna Museet, Stockholm. For the past 20 years curators have rivalled artists for the place of most important figure in contemporary art. This book documents and analyses this development and its repercussions. "Art and Its Institutions" provides a broad survey of art's complex and troubled relationship with institutions, and is an essential introduction to anyone involved with art appreciation, collecting, curation, the art market, art practice, as well as students and practitioners of art history, theory and politics. "Art and Its Institutions" considers recent events and developments in museology and curatorial practice within the art world. From the emergence of metadepartments in art institutions like The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to the impacts of institutional economic performance on intellectual content and artistic expression, this book plunges into the debates surrounding the institutions of the artworld, and emerges with some truly fascinating conclusions. It is an analytical and thought provoking publication, raising crucial questions, such as: Can art influence and engage with anything outside its own institutions? Is art merely self-referential or can art and its institutions contribute to the broader community/city/society? And do the spatial configurations of art institutions significantly reflect on society's reception of art and its practices? The various essays refer to and highlight the importance of key texts from within this area of study, from Douglas Crimp's seminal postmodern inquiry On the Museum's Ruins, 1993, to Peter and Christa Berger's influential Theory of the Avant-Garde, 1974, wherein the conception of the avant-garde's relation to institution was first proposed in terms of literary theory. These and other texts are considered in "Art and Its Institutions" with reference to the various crises of funding, meaning and political legitimacy, that currently afflict the artworld. This is an important resource that illuminates the diversity of art instutions today and their relation to artistic practice; an essential for anyone in art, education or arts administration.
About the Author
Beatrice von Bismarck is a professor of Art History and Visual Studies at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, co-founder of the /D/O/C/K-Projektbereich at the Academy, co-Founder of the Kunstraum der Universitat Luneburg. Andrea Fraser is a New York-based artist whose work has been identified with performance, context art, and institutional critique. Andrea Fraser: Works 1985-2003, a retrospective of her work, was organised by the Kunstverein in Hamburgh in 2003 with a catalogue by DuMont. In 2005, MIT Press released Museum Highlights: The Writings of Andrea Fraser, a collection of her essays and performance scripts edited by Alexander Alberro with a foreword by Pierre Bourdieu. Nina Montmann is a curator, lately at NIFCA, Helsinki, critic and writer, based in Hamburg. She is correspondent for Artforum and contributes to Le Monde Diplomatique, Parachute, Paletten, Texte zur Kunst. Latest publications: Kunst als sozialer Raum (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig 2002); Mapping a City, ed. together with Yilmaz Dziewior (Ostfildern Ruit: Cantz 2004); Die Visualitat der Theorie vs. Die Theorie des Visuellen, ed. together with Dorothee Richter (Frankfurt/Main: Revolver 2004). Simon Sheikh is a curator and critic. He is an Assistant Professor of Art Theory and a Coordinator of the Critical Studies Programme at Malmo Art Academy, Sweden. His writings have appeared in Afterall, AnArchitectur, Printed Project and Springerin. Recent publications: We are All Normal - and we want our freedom (Black Dog Publishing, London, 2001), Knut Asdam (Fine Arts Unternehmen, Zug, Switzeland, 2004) and In the Place of the Public Sphere (b_books, Berlin, 2005). Recent Exhibitions: Circa Berlin, Nikolaj - Copenhagen Contemporary Artcenter, 2005 and Capital (It Fails Us Now), UKS, Oslo, 2005.
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