In this groundbreaking examination of installation design as an aesthetic medium and cultural practice, Staniszewski offers the first history of exhibitions at the most powerful and influential modern art museum--The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Everyone who looks at contemporary art is familiar with galleries. But visual features of these mysterious temples tend to be taken for granted. The basic purpose of this book is to enliven the reader’s latent knowledge of galleries, including architectural motifs, the intended impression that is conveyed to the visitor, and human interactions within them. The contemporary art world system includes artists’ studios, art galleries, homes of collec-tors and public art museums. To comprehend art, one needs to understand these settings and how it travels through them. The contemporary art gallery is a store where luxury goods are sold. What distinguishes it from stores selling other luxuries – upscale clothing, jewelry, and posh cars – is the nature of the merchandise. While much has been written about the art, this book uncovers the secretive culture of the galleries themselves. The gallery is the public site where art is first seen – anyone can come and look for free. This store, a commercial site, is where aesthetic judgments are made. Art’s value is determined in this marketplace by the consensus formed by public opinion, professional re-viewers and sales. The gallery, then, is the nexus of the enigmatic, billion dollar art world, and it is that space that is dissected here. The first chapter briefly describes the beginnings of the present contemporary art gallery. The second presents the experience of gallery going, presenting summary accounts of vis-its to some contemporary galleries. The third expands and extends that analysis, with de-tailed close up descriptions and comparative evaluations of many diverse contemporary galleries, in order to identify the challenges provided by these marvelous places. Then the fourth chapter indicates why, in the near future, due to the proliferation of myriad art fairs and online platforms extant today, such galleries might disappear altogether.

Daymond John was inexperienced. He was uneducated. With no formal business training to speak of, he was just a hustler from Hollis with a pipedream of making it big. That was all before he turned the world of fashion on its head. And now, more than a decade after FUBU's wildly successful launch, founder and CEO Daymond John is out to tell the story of the FUBU fashion empire. More than just another amazing American success story, Display of Power tells how four ordinary guys from Queens, New York, rose from street corners to corner offices and became the greatest trendsetters of our generation. Daymond John lays it all out on the line--his secrets to success, his triumphs, and his utter failures--to show what it takes to harness and display the power that resides in us all. Part autobiography and part blueprint for success, Display of Power is a purely compelling read for anyone who wants something bigger out of life.

Mannequins in Museums is a collection of historical and contemporary case studies that examine how mannequins are presented in exhibitions and shows that, as objects used for storytelling, they are not neutral objects. Demonstrating that mannequins have long histories of being used to promote colonialism, consumerism, and racism, the book shows how these histories inform their use. It also engages readers in a conversation about how historical narratives are expressed in museums through mannequins as surrogate forms. Written by a select group of curators and art historians, the volume provides insight into a variety of museum contexts, including art, history, fashion, anthropology and wax. Drawing on exhibition case studies from North America, South Africa, and Europe, each chapter discusses the pedagogical and aesthetic stakes involved in representing racial difference and cultural history through mannequins. As a whole, the book will assist readers to understand the history of mannequins and their contemporary use as culturally relevant objects. Mannequins in Museums will be compelling reading for academics and students in the fields of museum studies, art history, public history, anthropology and visual and cultural studies. It should also be essential reading for museum professionals who are interested in rethinking mannequin display techniques.

Contiene:

Staniszewski treats installations as creations that manifest values, ideologies, politics, and of course aesthetics.

In Show Time, Lee Ann Fujii asks why some perpetrators of political violence, from lynch mobs to genocidal killers, display their acts of violence so publicly and extravagantly. Closely examining three horrific and extreme episodes—the murder of a prominent Tutsi family amidst the genocide in Rwanda, the execution of Muslim men in a Serb-controlled village in Bosnia during the Balkan Wars, and the lynching of a twenty-two-year old Black farmhand on Maryland's Eastern Shore in 1933—Fujii shows how "violent displays" are staged to not merely to kill those perceived to be enemies or threats, but also to affect and influence observers, neighbors, and the larger society. Watching and participating in these violent displays profoundly transforms those involved, reinforcing political identities, social hierarchies, and power structures. Such public spectacles of violence also force members of the community to choose sides—openly show support for the goals of the violence, or risk becoming victims, themselves. Tracing the ways in which public displays of violence unfold, Show Time reveals how the perpetrators exploit the fluidity of social ties for their own ends.