Abstract

Critical Practice: Artists, Museums, Ethics is an ambitious work that blurs the boundaries among art history, museum studies, political science and applied ethics. It takes an interdisciplinary approach to represent key developments in institutional critique as they impact museums. The book elucidates the museological and ethical implications of institutional critique, providing a much needed resource for museum studies scholars, artists, museum professionals, art historians and graduate students worldwide who are interested in mapping and unpacking the intricate relationships among artists, museums and communities. It argues that institutional critique is, at heart, a museological enterprise committed to creating reconciliations between museums and their publics. The volume will show how artists are uniquely positioned as both museum insiders and outsiders to encourage reconciliation. Critical Practice demonstrates how and why museums are drawn to institutional critique as reconciliation at pivotal moments in institutional and social history. By analyzing an international group of case studies, charting their attempts at reconciling museums and communities, it identifies key issues that institutional critique interrogates. In so doing, the book illuminates both the collaborative and contentious possibilities of these projects. Critical Practice is the first book on institutional critique informed by current debates in museum ethics and brings together a diverse range of literature to make it an invaluable resource for students of Museum Studies and Art and Gallery Studies.