Writing about displays of sculpture: historiography and some current questions

The current interest in how museums display sculpture forms part of a wider set of questions about how sculpture has been displayed and viewed historically. This paper surveys developments over the past thirty years or so and outlines some questions about the display and viewing of sculpture that we...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Malcolm Baker
Format: Article
Language:fra
Published: École du Louvre 2016-05-01
Series:Les Cahiers de l'École du Louvre
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/cel/332
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Summary:The current interest in how museums display sculpture forms part of a wider set of questions about how sculpture has been displayed and viewed historically. This paper surveys developments over the past thirty years or so and outlines some questions about the display and viewing of sculpture that we are addressing now. One central issue for any curator of sculpture is this: how should works of sculpture which were created for specific settings – often public settings – be shown meaningfully in gallery displays which impose their own new viewing conditions and lock these sculptures into a new set of narratives? How do both curators and spectators engage with sculptures which were once site-specific but which are now decontextualized or rather re-contextualised as gallery sculptures? These questions are examined here in terms of changing approaches within the discipline of art history as well as the options open to the curator.
ISSN:2262-208X