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Museum PiecesToward the Indigenization of Canadian Museums |
eBook Available
The politics of Canadian museums - the controversies, boycotts, and debates - and the international impact of the innovations they have stimulated.
The ways in which Aboriginal people and museums work together have changed drastically in recent decades. This historic process of decolonization, including distinctive attempts to institutionalize multiculturalism, has pushed Canadian museums to pioneer new practices that can accommodate both difference and inclusivity.
Ruth Phillips argues that these practices are "indigenous" not only because they originate in Aboriginal activism but because they draw on a distinctively Canadian preference for compromise and tolerance for ambiguity. Phillips dissects seminal exhibitions of Indigenous art to show how changes in display, curatorial voice, and authority stem from broad social, economic, and political forces outside the museum and moves beyond Canadian institutions and practices to discuss historically interrelated developments and exhibitions in the United States, Britain, Australia, and elsewhere. Drawing on forty years of experience as an art historian, curator, exhibition critic, and museum director, she emphasizes the complex and situated nature of the problems that face museums, introducing new perspectives on controversial exhibitions and moments of contestation.
A manifesto that calls on us to re-imagine the museum as a place to embrace global interconnectedness, Museum Pieces emphasizes the transformative power of museum controversy and analyses shifting ideas about art, authenticity, and power in the modern museum.
Ruth Phillips argues that these practices are "indigenous" not only because they originate in Aboriginal activism but because they draw on a distinctively Canadian preference for compromise and tolerance for ambiguity. Phillips dissects seminal exhibitions of Indigenous art to show how changes in display, curatorial voice, and authority stem from broad social, economic, and political forces outside the museum and moves beyond Canadian institutions and practices to discuss historically interrelated developments and exhibitions in the United States, Britain, Australia, and elsewhere. Drawing on forty years of experience as an art historian, curator, exhibition critic, and museum director, she emphasizes the complex and situated nature of the problems that face museums, introducing new perspectives on controversial exhibitions and moments of contestation.
A manifesto that calls on us to re-imagine the museum as a place to embrace global interconnectedness, Museum Pieces emphasizes the transformative power of museum controversy and analyses shifting ideas about art, authenticity, and power in the modern museum.
Details
Part of the McGill-Queen's/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation Studies in Art History Series (number 6 in series)
392 Pages, 6.5 x 9.75
60 colour photos
ISBN 9780773539068
October 2011
Formats: Paperback, Cloth, eBook
"As a scholar and museum director, Ruth Phillips has been deeply engaged with resurgent Aboriginal communities and artists in Canada and beyond. These persuasive essays - critically receptive, thoughtful, and creative - embody her response. Written during turbulent times, they offer a rare mix of theoretical acumen, hands-on realism, and post-colonial vision." James Clifford, author of The Predicament of Culture and Routes.
"Ruth Phillips has been a key maker and shaper of new curatorial and institutional cultures but is also certainly the finest commentator on the progress, in fits and starts, of the museum world over the last thirty years. While the debates have suffered a surfeit of rhetoric, Museum Pieces is full of insight and clarity. This is the best guide to the shifting sands of the museum world." Nicholas Thomas, Director, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge
"Museum Pieces is eminently readable - written simply and elegantly. There is no other book that covers forty years of Canadian museology with such historical depth and theoretical thoughtfulness." Jennifer Kramer, anthropology, University of British Columbia
"Ruth Phillips is one of the most well-respected and senior figures working in the domain of contemporary museum anthropology and critical museum studies. The great strengths of this volume are the author's careful research, her unique position within the events described, and the temporal depth of the analysis that traces important questions of indigenous representation in detail over decades. Uniting fine-grained analysis of exhibitions within a broader framework of political action and a social context of individual actors is an exemplary methodology for museum studies. This broad and extremely rich book presents a sustained argument for an interdisciplinary approach to the study of representational politics in museums." Haidy Geismar, anthropology and museum studies, New York University
"This detailed, thoughtful, and personal account demonstrates Phillips's impressive knowledge and sophistication." Choice
"This is an engaging and informative collection presented by a highly qualified and knowledgeable scholar and museum professional. The book is beautifully produced and enriched by many evocative photographs that add considerably to the topics under discussion." Anthropos
"Ruth Phillips has been a key maker and shaper of new curatorial and institutional cultures but is also certainly the finest commentator on the progress, in fits and starts, of the museum world over the last thirty years. While the debates have suffered a surfeit of rhetoric, Museum Pieces is full of insight and clarity. This is the best guide to the shifting sands of the museum world." Nicholas Thomas, Director, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge
"Museum Pieces is eminently readable - written simply and elegantly. There is no other book that covers forty years of Canadian museology with such historical depth and theoretical thoughtfulness." Jennifer Kramer, anthropology, University of British Columbia
"Ruth Phillips is one of the most well-respected and senior figures working in the domain of contemporary museum anthropology and critical museum studies. The great strengths of this volume are the author's careful research, her unique position within the events described, and the temporal depth of the analysis that traces important questions of indigenous representation in detail over decades. Uniting fine-grained analysis of exhibitions within a broader framework of political action and a social context of individual actors is an exemplary methodology for museum studies. This broad and extremely rich book presents a sustained argument for an interdisciplinary approach to the study of representational politics in museums." Haidy Geismar, anthropology and museum studies, New York University
"This detailed, thoughtful, and personal account demonstrates Phillips's impressive knowledge and sophistication." Choice
"This is an engaging and informative collection presented by a highly qualified and knowledgeable scholar and museum professional. The book is beautifully produced and enriched by many evocative photographs that add considerably to the topics under discussion." Anthropos
Ruth B. Phillips is an art historian specializing in North American Aboriginal art and a former director of the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology.
Illustrations ix
Colour plates after pages 160 and 256
Acknowledgments xiii
A Note on Names and Terms xv
A Preface - by Way of an Introduction 3
Part One
Confrontation and Contestation
Undoing the Settler Museum: Showing Off and Showing Up 24
1 “Arrow of Truth”: The Indians of
Canada Pavilion at Expo 67 27
with Sherry Brydon
2 Moment of Truth: The Spirit Sings as
Critical Event and the Exhibition
Inside It 48
3 apec at the Museum of Anthropology:
The Politics of Site and the Poetics of
Sight Bite 71
Part Two
Re-disciplining the Museum
Exclusions and Inclusions: Authenticity,
Sacrality, and Possession 92
4 How Museums Marginalize:
Naming Domains of Inclusion
and Exclusion 95
5 Fielding Culture: Dialogues between Art
History and Anthropology 102
6 Disappearing Acts: Traditions of
Exposure, Traditions of Enclosure,
and the Sacrality of Onkwehonwe
Medicine Masks 111
7 The Global Travels of a Mi’kmaq Coat:
Colonial Legacies, Repatriation, and the
New Cosmopolitanism 132
Part Three
Working It Out
Indigenizing Exhibitions: Experiments
and Practices 156
8 Making Space: First Nations Artists, the
National Museums, and the Columbus
Quincentennial (1992) 161
9 Cancelling White Noise:
Gerald McMaster’s Savage
Graces (1994) 168
10 Threads of the Land at the
Canadian Museum of
Civilization (1995) 179
11 Toward a Dialogic Paradigm:
New Models of Collaborative Curatorial
Practice 185
12 Inside-Out and Outside-In:
Re-presenting Native North America at
the Canadian Museum of Civilization and
the National Museum of the American
Indian (2003-2004) 205
Part Four
The Second Museum Age
Working with Hybridity 228
13 From Harmony to Antiphony:
The Indigenous Presence in a (Future)
Portrait Gallery of Canada 231
14 Modes of Inclusion: Indigenous Art at
the National Gallery of Canada and the
Art Gallery of Ontario 252
15 The Digital (R)Evolution of Museum-
Based Research 277
16 “Learning to Feed off Controversies”:
Meeting the Challenges of Translation and
Recovery in Canadian Museums 297
Notes 317
Index 359
Colour plates after pages 160 and 256
Acknowledgments xiii
A Note on Names and Terms xv
A Preface - by Way of an Introduction 3
Part One
Confrontation and Contestation
Undoing the Settler Museum: Showing Off and Showing Up 24
1 “Arrow of Truth”: The Indians of
Canada Pavilion at Expo 67 27
with Sherry Brydon
2 Moment of Truth: The Spirit Sings as
Critical Event and the Exhibition
Inside It 48
3 apec at the Museum of Anthropology:
The Politics of Site and the Poetics of
Sight Bite 71
Part Two
Re-disciplining the Museum
Exclusions and Inclusions: Authenticity,
Sacrality, and Possession 92
4 How Museums Marginalize:
Naming Domains of Inclusion
and Exclusion 95
5 Fielding Culture: Dialogues between Art
History and Anthropology 102
6 Disappearing Acts: Traditions of
Exposure, Traditions of Enclosure,
and the Sacrality of Onkwehonwe
Medicine Masks 111
7 The Global Travels of a Mi’kmaq Coat:
Colonial Legacies, Repatriation, and the
New Cosmopolitanism 132
Part Three
Working It Out
Indigenizing Exhibitions: Experiments
and Practices 156
8 Making Space: First Nations Artists, the
National Museums, and the Columbus
Quincentennial (1992) 161
9 Cancelling White Noise:
Gerald McMaster’s Savage
Graces (1994) 168
10 Threads of the Land at the
Canadian Museum of
Civilization (1995) 179
11 Toward a Dialogic Paradigm:
New Models of Collaborative Curatorial
Practice 185
12 Inside-Out and Outside-In:
Re-presenting Native North America at
the Canadian Museum of Civilization and
the National Museum of the American
Indian (2003-2004) 205
Part Four
The Second Museum Age
Working with Hybridity 228
13 From Harmony to Antiphony:
The Indigenous Presence in a (Future)
Portrait Gallery of Canada 231
14 Modes of Inclusion: Indigenous Art at
the National Gallery of Canada and the
Art Gallery of Ontario 252
15 The Digital (R)Evolution of Museum-
Based Research 277
16 “Learning to Feed off Controversies”:
Meeting the Challenges of Translation and
Recovery in Canadian Museums 297
Notes 317
Index 359
Shortlisted
Donner Prize
Donner Canadian Foundation (2012)
Winner
Ottawa Book Awards
(2012)
Donner Prize
Donner Canadian Foundation (2012)
Winner
Ottawa Book Awards
(2012)
