Art and Artifact

An extensive survey of the relationship between contemporary artists and museums

Citing a range of examples, this title shows the ways in which artists have been influenced by museum systems and made their works into simulations of the museum. It also shows how artists have questioned the role of museums, observed their practices, intervened in them and helped to redefine them.From ‘cabinets of curiosities’ to assemblages of found objects and imitations of museum displays, artists have often turned their attention to the ideas and systems traditionally embodied in the museum – display, archiving, classification, storage, curatorship – which they have then appropriated, mimicked and reinterpreted in their own work. Citing a huge range of examples, James Putnam shows not only the ways in which artists have been influenced by museum systems and made their works into simulations of the museum, but also how they have questioned the role of museums, observed their practices, intervened in them and helped to redefine them.