Product Description

Illustrated with over fifty photos, this book merges contemporary debates with lively discussion and explores central issues involved in the making and displaying of art as industry, and how it is presented to the community.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79934 in Books
• Published on: 1995-05-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Review
'Carol Duncan writes with prescient insight, brilliance, and good humour ... Civilising Rituals will become a classic of museum scholarship and cultural history.' - Linda Nochlin, New York University

'Carol Duncan is a thinker of enormous stature, whose reputation - deservedly - has begun to assume almost legendary proportions. In her long-awaited book, she analyses the public art museum not as a simple receptacle for art and cultural history but as a powerful agent that has helped to shape that history through architectural symbolism, spatial dynamics, installation choices and their ritualistic associations ... she leads her readers to question, constructively, their previously unexamined cultural assumptions and values.' - Norma Broude, The American University

'A good read and a must for anyone interested in museums.' - Andrew McClellan, Tufts University, Massachusetts

'A welcome contribution to a growing body of critical literature from one of the pioneers of work on museum culture. Duncan succeeds in synthesing contemporary debates in an admirably accessible language without sacrificing the complexities of her subject.' - Annie E. Coombes, Birbeck College, University of London

From the Back Cover
Carol Duncan writes with prescient insight, brilliance, and humour in her study of the art museum and its practices.... `Civilizing Rituals' will become a classic of museum scholarship, and of cultural history." Linda Nochlin, Institute of Fine Art, New York University "Carol Duncan is a thinker of enormous stature, whose reputation - deservedly - has begun to assume almost legendary proportions. In her long-awaited book, she analyzes the public art museum not as a simple receptacle for art and cultural history but as a powerful agent that has helped to shape that history through architectural symbolism, spatial dynamics, installation choices and their ritualistic associations ... she leads her readers to question, constructively, their previously unexamined cultural assumptions and values." Norma Broude, The American University, Washington DC "A lively and authoritative discussion of some key issues facing museums past and present. Civilizing Rituals is a good read and a must for anyone interested in museums." Andrew McClellan, Tufts University, Massachusetts "A welcome contribution to a growing body of critical literature from one of the pioneers of work on museum culture. Duncan succeeds in synthesizing contemporary debates in an admirably accessible language without sacrificing the complexities of her subject." Annie E. Coombes, Birkbeck College, University of London Civilizing Rituals is illustrated with over 50 photographs.

Customer Reviews

understanding art museums
As a theorist of art and Art myself, I am struck by how very few books offer insight into the problem of Modern Art, the public promotion, civic installation and academic endorsement of a mostly bogus offering of artistic marvel, 1917 to present. This book, together with Carol Duncan's other book 'The Aesthetics of Power', is among that very few.

Her chief contribution is to explain what kind of social and political context (revolutionary politics), in Europe, led to the birth of the modern public Art museum in the early 19th century. The model she offers is the palace and its treasure nationalized and opened to public perambulation. For me, her essays brought an added perspective that allowed everything else I was thinking about for years to fall into place. Alas, she has not applied this perspective and her cool intelligence to 20th century developments in Art - the flip from an art of illusion to an illusion of Art. But then, nor has anyone else, yet.

Civilizing Rituals
The picture quality is a bit off, but i guess that is the publishers fault and not the sellers! Very good condition, and is being much used!
Thankyou very much