Do museums still need objects? /Steven Conn.

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Do museums still need objects? /Steven Conn.


Author:	Conn, Steven.
Publisher:	Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2010.
ISBN:	9780812241907 (alk paper)
Format:	Books
Physical Description:	262 p. :ill. ;24 cm.
Subjects:	Museums United States History 20th century Museum exhibits United States History 20th century Museums Collection management United States History 20th century Cultural property United States History 20th century Art objects United States History 20th century Museums Political aspects United States History 20th century Museums Social aspects United States History 20th century

Table of Contents Book Review Annotation

Table of Contents

	Introduction: Thinking about Museums	p. 1
	Do Museums Still Need Objects?	p. 20
	Whose Objects? Whose Culture? The Contexts of Repatriation	p. 58
	Where Is the East?	p. 86
	Where Have All the Grown-Ups Gone?	p. 138
	The Birth and the Death of a Museum	p. 172
	Museums, Public Space, and Civic identity	p. 197
	Notes	p. 233
	Index	p. 257
	Acknowledgments	p. 261

Reviews

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Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

This fascinating book is not a standard history of American museums, but rather an examination of how they have changed as their role in American society, and the perception of that role, has changed. A continuing theme of the book is the function of museum collections' objects, e.g., the paintings or specimens, and how they have become less relevant, especially for science and national history museums. Different chapters address such controversial issues as the changing concept of "Asian art"; the idea of the "artifact" itself; the changing audiences of science museums; the issue of repatriation, e.g., with regard to Native American objects; and the role of education in museums. Of special interest is the discussion of the relationship between the museum and the city, with the museum serving as a kind of social glue for the city's various constituencies. Conn (independent scholar) includes many references to specific museums, exhibitions, and buildings, and to more general theoretical contexts, such as those of Michel Foucault. The author has written and lectured often on cultural issues. The book includes extensive footnotes and useful black-and-white reproductions. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers; general readers. F. W. Robinson Cornell University

Summary

"We live in a museum age," writes Steven Conn inDo Museums Still Need Objects?And indeed, at the turn of the twenty-first century, more people are visiting museums than ever before. There are now over 17,500 accredited museums in the United States, averaging approximately 865 million visits a year, more than two million visits a day. New museums have proliferated across the cultural landscape even as older ones have undergone transformational additions: from the Museum of Modern Art and the Morgan in New York to the High in Atlanta and the Getty in Los Angeles. If the golden age of museum-building came a century ago, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Field Museum of Natural History, and others were created, then it is fair to say that in the last generation we have witnessed a second golden age.

By closely observing the cultural, intellectual, and political roles that museums play in contemporary society, while also delving deeply into their institutional histories, historian Steven Conn demonstrates that museums are no longer seen simply as houses for collections of objects. Conn ranges across a wide variety of museum types-from art and anthropology to science and commercial museums-asking questions about the relationship between museums and knowledge, about the connection between culture and politics, about the role of museums in representing non-Western societies, and about public institutions and the changing nature of their constituencies. Elegantly written and deeply researched,Do Museums Still Need Objects?is essential reading for historians, museum professionals, and those who love to visit museums.