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The state of not knowing or engaging with the unknown is an important aspect of all research. For artists it is crucial, as the making process often balances a strong sense of direction with a more playful or meditative state of exploration and experimentation. Art practice is not only a valid mode of philosophical enquiry but also provides ways of thinking and articulating knowledge that are not utilized by other disciplines. "On Not Knowing" emerges from an interdisciplinary symposium organiz...

An analysis of the contexts in which curating takes place: why curate art these days and in the name of which interests? If we ask where the curating of art occurs these days--in which places, which kinds of place, and how--apparent answers immediately appear: everywhere, expanding as if to ubiquity. Yet at the same time, we sense, with fragile purpose. In this, his newest book, Terry Smith explores the contemporary contexts of curating, looking for less apparent answers. It will map the dimens...

In recent years, there has been increasing scholarly interest in the history of museums, academies and major exhibitions. There has been, however, little to no sustained interest in the histories of alternative exhibitions (single artwork, solo artist, artist-mounted, entrepreneurial, privately funded, ephemeral, etc.) with the notable exception of those publications that deal with situations involving major artists or those who would become so - for example J.L. David’s exhibition of Interventi...

For quite a long time medieval works were not always recognized as art. They found their way into useums only with resistance, at first even as proof of their inferiority. Creating suitable presentations of these works remains a challenge for curators and collections to this day. This analysis of presentation methods, in the context of exhibitions, traces how museums have treated the Middle Ages from the early modern period to the present, and investigates a change in perception towards medieval...

A spirited critique of the cultural politics of the tourist age. Or, why we are all tourists who hate tourists We've all been tourists at some point in our lives. How is it we look so condescendingly at people taking selfies in front of the Tower of Pisa? Is there really much to distinguish the package holiday from hipster city-breaks to Berlin or Brooklyn? Why do we engage our free time in an activity we profess to despise? The World in a Selfie dissects a global cultural phenomenon. For Marc...

A comprehensive description and behind-the-scenes look into the architectural evolution of the Barnes Foundation's new building in downtown Philadelphia. In 2007, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects received the commission to design the new Barnes Foundation building, an enviable project that was surrounded both by controversy and the excitement of increasing access to one of America's premier collections of post-impressionist art, amassed by Dr. Albert C. Barnes in the early twentieth century...

A collection of first-person narratives offering a vivid, nuanced look at the lived and shared experiences of Bering Strait communities in the COVID-19 era, Stronger Together is a unique collaboration between the Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum in Nome, Alaska, and over forty community members, artists, and poets from across the Bering Strait region.   The featured artists narrativize works inspired by the pandemic, from walrus ivory masks and sealskin face coverings to scenes of subsistence ac...

"Anna Richards Brewster, American Impressionist" is the first in-depth study of an artist whose name is not well-known today but who was one of the most successful women artists of her time. This beautifully illustrated book, catalog to the exhibition of the same name, provides a fascinating look at the turn-of-the-twentieth-century art world as experienced by a woman artist. Anna Richards Brewster (1870-1952) began painting at age ten, studied with William Merritt Chase and John LaFarge, and tr...

This sweeping overview of Ellsworth Kelly's 50-year career brings together the 22 pieces the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art acquired from Kelly's personal collection in May 1999. The volume also includes paintings, sculptures, drawings and reliefs from the Museum's previous holdings and private collections throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. The primary text by Madeleine Grynsztejn explores the evolution of Kelly's artwork, his longstanding interest in the phenomenology of vision, and his...

Baltimore's Homewood was a wedding gift from Charles Carroll, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, to his son Charles Jr. and his bride, Harriet Chew Carroll. Located on 130 acres of rolling meadow and forest, it afforded picturesque view to the harbor. The couple built a "full and genteel establishment," a grand yet intimate summer house that exemplifies the work of the most skilled Baltimore craftsmen of the Federal period. Construction began in 1801 and incorporated a classical five-p...

As an historical account of the exchange of "duplicate specimens" between anthropologists at the Smithsonian Institution and museums, collectors, and schools around the world in the late nineteenth century, this book reveals connections between both well-known museums and little-known local institutions, created through the exchange of museum objects. It explores how anthropologists categorized some objects in their collections as "duplicate specimens," making them potential candidates for exc...

Storytelling Exhibitions describes the role and practice of modern ‘spatial storytellers’ and looks at the potential of exhibitions to shape our understanding of the world. It explains how curators, designers, artists and scientists combine to tell powerful stories through exhibition design. Exhibition designer and educator Philip Hughes shows how contemporary tools and technologies - digital reconstruction, 3D scanning and digital archives – interweave with traditional forms of informing, dis...

Creating African Fashion Histories focuses on the intersection between African clothing and museum work. The dynamism of African fashion has been a disruption to conventional museum practice as curators cast African bodily adornment as "dress" while restricting "fashion" to the West's historical trajectory. Yet scholars of African fashion and museums have to date benefited from very little dialogue between their respective fields. This volume breaks new ground by bringing together an interdiscip...