ARTH 390 Art and the Museum: The Power of Display

• Instructor: Dr. Anne Whitelaw

The primary goal of this course is to introduce students to current issues in the analysis of the museum. The “birth” of the museum is traditionally dated to the French Revolution when the King’s palace was taken over by the newly enfranchised bourgeoisie and turned into a public museum: the Louvre. Since then, museums have played a central role in the circulation and consumption–if not the production–of art, and as a result have been the site of debates around art, the nation, race, gender and power. In this course, we will cover some of the most important literature on museums written since the 1980s, addressing such topics as the establishment of museum collections, corporate sponsorship, the critique of the museum by artists, the changing nature of display paradigms throughout the last century, and the role of the museum in the establishment of artistic value. Throughout the course, we will be unpacking the way that museums present and exhibit objects so as to understand the power of display.