The concept of an encyclopedic museum was born of the Enlightenment, a manifestation of society’s growing belief that the spread of knowledge and the promotion of intellectual inquiry were crucial to human development and the future of a rational society. But in recent years, museums have been under attack, with critics arguing that they are little more than relics and promoters of imperialism. Could it be that the encyclopedic museum has outlived its usefulness?With Museums Ma...

Whether antiquities should be returned to the countries where they were found is one of the most urgent and controversial issues in the art world today, and it has pitted museums, private collectors, and dealers against source countries, archaeologists, and academics. Maintaining that the acquisition of undocumented antiquities by museums encourages the looting of archaeological sites, countries such as Italy, Greece, Egypt, Turkey, and China have claimed ancient artifacts as state propert...

The international controversy over who "owns" antiquities has pitted museums against archaeologists and source countries where ancient artifacts are found. In his book Who Owns Antiquity?, James Cuno argued that antiquities are the cultural property of humankind, not of the countries that lay exclusive claim to them. Now in Whose Culture?, Cuno assembles preeminent museum directors, curators, and scholars to explain for themselves what's at stake in this struggle--and why...

The heroic, #1 New York Times bestselling tale of the men who saved the world's greatest art from the Nazis, and the basis for the acclaimed motion picture starring George Clooney.At the same time Adolf Hitler was attempting to take over the western world, his armies were methodically seeking and hoarding the finest art treasures in Europe. The Fuhrer had begun cataloguing the art he planned to collect as well as the art h...

Written in accessible, nontechnical language, this book's twenty-three essays provide invaluable conservation guidelines for a variety of materials and media. Focusing also on proper storage techniques and environmental control, contributors offer information on emergency planning, disaster management, and identifying damages that may require professional treatment.

Examining international case studies including USA, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Laurajane Smith identifies and explores the use of heritage throughout the world.Challenging the idea that heritage value is self-evident, and that things must be preserved because they have an inherent importance, Smith forcefully demonstrates that heritage value is not inherent in physical objects or places, but rather that these objects and places are used to give tangibility to the values that ...

A step-by-step guide to every aspect of putting on an art exhibition, with tips from a range of influential curators.The Curator’s Handbook is the essential handbook for curators and curatorial students, mapping every stage of the process of putting on an exhibition, no matter how traditional the venue, from initial idea to final installation.An introduction explores curatorial work from its origins in the seventeenth century onward and outlines th...

Post-Critical Museology considers what the role of the public and the experience of audiences means to the everyday work of the art museum. It does this from the perspectives of the art museum itself as well as from the visitors it seeks. Through the analysis of material gathered from a major collaborative research project carried out at Tate Britain in London the book develops a conceptual reconfiguration of the relationship between art, culture and society in which questions abo...

Challenging History in the Museum explores work with difficult, contested and sensitive heritages in a range of museum contexts. It is based on the Challenging History project, which brings together a wide range of heritage professionals, practitioners and academics to explore heritage and museum learning programmes in relation to difficult and controversial subjects. The book is divided into four sections. Part I, ’The Emotional Museum’ examines the balance between empathic and emotional ...

This book considers key ethical questions in museum policy and practice, particularly those related to issues of collection and display. What does a collection signify in the twenty-first century museum? How does an engagement with immateriality challenge museums’ concept of ownership, and how does that immateriality translate into the design of exhibitions and museum space? Are museums still about safeguarding objects, and what does safeguarding mean for diverse individuals and communitie...

Marketing the Museum is the ideal guide to the ways in which museums can overcome the numerous hurdles on the route to truly achieving a marketing orientation.The history of the museum is one of shifting purposes and changing ideals and this volume asks if it is possible to define the 'product' which the modern museum can offer. This book explores the crucial question: Are the theories of marketing developed for manufactured goods in any way relevant to the experience of v...

Places of Pain and Shame is a cross-cultural study of sites that represent painful and/or shameful episodes in a national or local community’s history, and the ways that government agencies, heritage professionals and the communities themselves seek to remember, commemorate and conserve these cases – or, conversely, choose to forget them.Such episodes and locations include: massacre and genocide sites, places related to prisoners of war, civil and political prisons, and pl...