In Search of a Lost Avant-Garde
eBook - ePub

In Search of a Lost Avant-Garde

An Anthropologist Investigates the Contemporary Art Museum

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

In Search of a Lost Avant-Garde

An Anthropologist Investigates the Contemporary Art Museum

About this book

In 2008, anthropologist Matti Bunzl was given rare access to observe the curatorial department of Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. For five months, he sat with the institution's staff, witnessing firsthand what truly goes on behind the scenes at a contemporary art museum. From fund-raising and owner loans to museum-artist relations to the immense effort involved in safely shipping sixty works from twenty-seven lenders in fourteen cities and five countries, Matti Bunzl's In Search of a Lost Avant-Garde illustrates the inner workings of one of Chicago's premier cultural institutions.

Bunzl's ethnography is designed to show how a commitment to the avant-garde can come into conflict with an imperative for growth, leading to the abandonment of the new and difficult in favor of the entertaining and profitable. Jeff Koons, whose massive retrospective debuted during Bunzl's research, occupies a central place in his book and exposes the anxieties caused by such seemingly pornographic work as the infamous Made in Heaven series. Featuring cameos by other leading artists, including Liam Gillick, Jenny Holzer, Karen Kilimnik, and Tino Sehgal, the drama Bunzl narrates is palpable and entertaining and sheds an altogether new light on the contemporary art boom.

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Yes, you can access In Search of a Lost Avant-Garde by Matti Bunzl in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Art & Art General. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Copyright
  3. Title Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Contents
  7. 1. MCA
  8. 2. Jeff Koons ♥ Chicago
  9. 3. Fear No Art
  10. 4. The Gift
  11. 5. Untitled (Curation)
  12. 6. Ren
  13. Acknowledgments
  14. Notes
  15. Further Readings
  16. Index