UID:
almahu_9949245749302882
Format:
1 online resource (224 pages).
Edition:
First edition.
ISBN:
9781350045781
,
9781350045798
Content:
"A focus on the museum as a model institution of the liberal nation state can reveal much about the ethics of where, why, and how, the public sector meets private interest. In a non-profit institution, the category of "the public" plays a role in establishing the symbolic value of art, yet this is what sustains its markets and its monetary value; the public is therefore a necessary component in art's profit potential, especially since art began yielding super-profits in the late 20th century. A shift in the structure and operation of non-profit institutions, following the economic crash of 2008, has accelerated the growth of the art market and the museum boom, affecting the economy and meaning of contemporary art in the 21st century. Shaked lays out and critiques the set of unprecedented historical conditions that have been converging since the 1970s, while reverting to models of criteria and judgment that existed in the 16th century, to demonstrate the exacerbated ethical problems we now face in the funding and operations of nonprofit museums. Through a Historical Materialism critique, observing the art object as both an historical object and as one produced in contemporary conditions, this book describes the collection, the market, and the institution as a set of social relations to get a total picture of the meaning of art within this oscillating constellation of social and monetary relations. Art moves from the level of individual or small-scale making, through the circulation systems of market and media, to the museum-the institution that confers the possibility of value in the name of the public. To understand this dynamic, Shaked traces the path of the art object, viewing it not as an individual object, part of an artist's oeuvre, or representative of a school, but in the context of the "public collection" as a category. Comparing different definitions and theories of value allows this book to connect historical, political, aesthetic, theoretical, and economic paradigms of inquiry."--
Note:
Introduction: in the name of the public -- 1.Historical background: the Medici and the symbolic collection paradigm -- 2. The collections, collecting, and the administration of society -- 3. The invention of the non-profit, or: How capitalism writes itself a check -- 4. Museums and art of its time: the uses and abuses of public space for private gain -- 5. The bureaucracy of aesthetics -- 6. The two meanings of value: monetary and symbolic -- 7. In the name of the public: museum deregulation after the gold standard -- Conclusion: Against populism-rating is not democracy.
,
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Language:
English
Keywords:
Electronic books.
DOI:
10.5040/9781350045798
URL:
Abstract with links to full text
