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Abstract
The modern conception of “art” has its roots in the development of eighteenth‐century aesthetics, yet continues to have an apparently unshakeable hold on the broad field of cultural policy. Across a wide range of programs and disciplines, a lingering faith in the autonomy of art, in the isolated genius of the artist and in the superiority of traditional high art forms over those of popular culture is still, I would argue, clearly evident, and the discourse of aesthetic autonomy has served to inform the development of arts and cultural policies, and especially the policies of the contemporary art museum. In sharp contrast to this traditionalist discourse, the “postmodern museum” embraces context and interactivity as an integral part of its cultural mandate, which revolves around notions of populism, communication, interactivity and a non‐hierarchical “democratization” of the previously authoritative modernist museum. In this article, drawing on a specific case study from the contemporary art museum – the controversy surrounding the purchase of Barnett Newman’s Voice of Fire by Canada’s National Gallery – and addressing the often heated debate around the populist agenda of the “postmodern museum”, the author explores the tensions between discourses of art and context in the contemporary gallery and museum, suggesting the need for a radical reassessment of established exhibition practices and modes of display.
Notes
1. Guilbaut’s argument here has much in common with the work of Lawrence Levine (Citation1988) and Paul DiMaggio (Citation1982, p.43), which explores the “sacralization” of American high culture at the end of the nineteenth century.
2. All the paintings in the exhibit were commissioned by the art critic Alan Solomon on behalf of the USIA (see O’Brian Citation1996b).
3. CBC Television News, 8 May 1967 (see the CBC Archives, available online at: http://archives.cbc.ca/IDCC‐1‐69‐100‐552/life_society/expo_67).
4. For further information on Expo ‘67, see the relevant pages on the National Library of Canada and National Archives of Canada website: www.collectionscanada.ca/05/0533/053302_e.html.
5. John O’Brian (Citation1996b, p. 128) observes that Newman had “lofty expectations about the power of visual art to communicate moral values, and … chose an admonitory Old Testament title for the painting”. Nicole Dubreuil‐Blondin (Citation1996, p. 159) notes of the title that it “suggests the voice of Jehovah from the burning bush”.
6. The relevance of this point to the discussion in the previous section of Voice of Fire, and its role within the USIA‐supported American Pavilion as part of the Expo ‘67 world’s fair in Montreal, is worthwhile highlighting at this stage.
7. For further information on the Burrell Collection, see: www.glasgowmuseums.com/venue/index.cfm?venueid=1.
8. The recent exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts/Musée des beaux‐arts de Montréal, “Global Village: The 60s”, offered a stimulating – and occasionally frustrating – example of the type of contextualist approach I have in mind. The exhibition embraced art, design, technology and politics in an intriguing manner, although the popular music of the period – surely a defining feature of the culture of the 1960s – was rather poorly represented.