Category: Uncategorized
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The Universal Survey Museum
In “The Universal Survey Museum,” Duncan and Wallach assert that the encyclopedic museum is an ideological construct; it proclaims the state’s political dominance via ceremonial architecture and manifests national ideals through the arrangement of the collections. This influences the visitors’ experience, effectively causing them to enact religiously suggestive rituals while absorbing the state’s socio-political values. […]
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Artifacts as Expressions of Society and Culture: Subversive Genealogy and the Value of History
In “Artifacts as Expressions of Society and Culture…” Leone and Little raise questions about the accuracy of history that does not examine itself. They suggest Peale and Nicholson’s work in post-Revolutionary War America, purported to be legitimate histories, were essentially “myths” seeking to justify the social hierarchy as predestined, and control the newly independent population, […]
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The Art of Living
In “The Art of Living”, Jeffrey Trask analyzes The Met’s role in the Colonial Revival Movement, where ultimately, the American wing helped establish an American “identity.” To create The Met’s American Wing in the early 1900s, de Forest and Kent began donating or collecting an earlier elite population’s decorative arts for exhibit. With a carefully […]
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The Museum of Modern Art: The Past’s Future
In “The Museum of Modern Art: The Past’s Future,” Wallach argues that contrary to critical views of MoMA as stagnant, MoMA has undergone a profound architectural and philosophical evolution over its history. He presents a three-stage narrative of architecture as identity in lockstep with institutional change, with MoMA’s physical form expressing the Museum’s ideological beliefs […]