Public Art: Thinking Museums Differently

Hilde Hein

doi:10.5771/9780759114173

Summary

Public Art acknowledges the trend among contemporary museums to promote participatory and processual exhibition strategies meant to elicit subjective experience. At the same time it valorizes the object-oriented tradition that has long differentiated museums from other institutions similarly committed to public service and the perpetuation of cultural values. To blend and expand these aims, Hein draws upon a movement toward ephemerality and impermanence in public art. She proposes a new dynamic for the museum that is temporal and pluralistic, while retaining a grounding in material things. The museum is an agent, not a repository; and like public art, it interacts constructively with passing and transitory publics. As an actor with social clout, the museum has moral impact and responsibilities beyond those of the individuals that comprise its collective identity. The book should be read by museum workers and students, by arts and foundation administrators, critics, educators, aestheticians, institutional historians and theorists, and by anyone interested in the transmission of cultural concepts and values.

Search publication

Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2006
Copyright Year: 2006
ISBN-Print: 978-0-7591-0958-2
ISBN-Online: 978-0-7591-1417-3
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 167
Product Type: Monograph

1. Contents No access
2. List of Illustrations No access
3. Preface No access
4. Introduction No access
1 The Experiential Museum No access Pages 1 - 22
2 The Private, the Nonprivate, and the Public No access Pages 23 - 48
3 Public Art: History and Meaning No access Pages 49 - 82
4 Innovation in Public Art No access Pages 83 - 106
5 Old Museums and a New Paradigm No access Pages 107 - 130
6 Why a New Paradigm? No access Pages 131 - 156
7 Conclusion No access Pages 157 - 162
Index No access Pages 163 - 166
About the Author No access Pages 167 - 167