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Summary Readings for Exhibition machine
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Includes the readings summarised from demos, charman, taylor, jones, bennet, quaranta and lidchi.
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Week 1: DEMOS, T. J., ‘The Tate Effect’, in Hans Belting and AndreaBuddensieg (eds.), The Global Art World. Audiences, Markets, and
Museums, Ostfildern (Hatje Cantz), 2009, 256-265.
● Emphasizes that Tate is not just a big scary powerful corperation.
● “There is no one simple, Tate Effect, since Tate embodies contradiction,
multiplicity, paradox.” (page 256)
● Tate Modern is the most visited modern art museum in the world
● Tate’s funding structure is seen as problematic:
○ Expansion during Thatcher’s conservative administration in 1980s
○ Formed a public-private partnership
○ Led to conflicts of interest and some anti-democratic developments in
organisation
● Laura Cumming described the organisation of Tate as “prostitution” (page
257)
○ They are paid by sponsors to give up museum space to them (as if part
of a body)
● This private-public funding caused issues, but also allowed for great
developments.
○ Provided housing, bookshops, educational & outreach programmes
○ Unlike other Western museums franchising
P258-259
● He begins these pages continuing on from the last point he was making about
museums functioning as capitalist machines. He goes on to discuss the claims
made on Tate’s website which show the complexities and contradictions inherent in
the functioning of museums. By stating an aim to show as they say “international
modern art”, it ‘institutionalizes a national definition of artistic practice’ in Demos’
view. This also means that narratives and ‘lineages’ formed in a way that seems
natural, which isnt honest about their constructed nature. There are global
categories formed, and British art is seemingly given a privileged place whilst there
is still a clear desire for a balance of national representation. Demos points out that
these two actions are contrasting and contradictory, and because of their
coexistence, it means that neither function is fulfilled very successfully.
Week 2: Bennet, The Exhibitionary Complex
Aim of the exhibitionary complex: moral and cultural regulation of the working classes; rendering the crowd visible to
ITSELF; a “self-monitoring system of looks”; “self-education from the point of view of capital” p.91
, - The exhibitionary complex led to the birth of new disciplines, such as art history and biology.
Through them, the institutions are able to display their power thanks to the displays’
organisation. The most common example was that of nationalism, in which museums would
prioritise their own nation-state over others. Another case is the organisation of
anthropological remains - keeping in mind the context of 19th century imperialism - which
had an underlying racist motive and prioritised Western cultures above the rest.
- The Great Exhibition had shown its artefacts in a similar way, portraying the nation holding
the fair as superior. This led to a vast number of both tourism and locals visiting the
exhibition - referring back to self-surveillance and the masses becoming part of the
spectacle. The difference between museums and World Fairs grew larger during modernism,
due to the need of museums to provide permanent exhibitions while the latter had
differences each year. The World Fairs focused on products, divided in national pavilions -
showing the future developments of each nation and providing a message of hope, while still
keeping that imperialist power present within.
—-----------------
BENNETT
Foucault is a french poststructuralist. For Foucault power is everywhere and comes from
everywhere, not a structure dedicated to one person. Power Inheres in individuals and
Institutions. Institutions nowadays internalise dominant values and truths in citizens. Without
using punishment like in the past. Institutions use a humane practice of discipline, in a way
that makes all deviance visible and correctable. This is how we keep the social order, with an
omnipresent policing of the mind and bodies of individuals.
Power is not a thing but a Relation. Power is productive and omnipresent. It's not like that
power is just repressive. There is no Top-down approach in Foucauldian power theory.
Power is diffused And Embodied in discourse, knowledge, and truth. Power produces
knowledge.
In this text, tony bennet builds on the idea of Douglas Crimp on the fact that museums can
be analyzed as a new institution of confinement based on the Foucauldian framework.
He doesn’t believe that museums are institutions of confinement because now the museums
are open to the public and artworks are not fundamentally beings that can walk on their feet
and stroll in the streets, but he says that the museums are a new source of
power/knowledge.
Foucault talks a lot about punishment and how power is embodied in knowledge and order.
The system maintains order by punishment. It also makes it known to people that they’re the
object of surveillance, that the system has them under its radar, and that if they do anything
wrong, they will be punished. At the same time, the punishment is carried on a public space,
so everyone will know that this is what you have to deal with if you break the law.
You can think of the early penal system as a school, not only for the offender but also for the
people who witnessed it. So the offender basically has two points for the society: 1- they're
gonna serve time and put on some good work. 2- the public effect of the punished offender:
they're gonna be a live example of what society should avoid.
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