Held on the occasion of Louvre Abu Dhabi’s first anniversary, the symposium Worlds in a Museum addressed the topic of museums in the era of globalisation, exploring contemporary museology and the preservation and presentation of culture within the context of changing societies. Departing from the historical museum structure inherited from the Enlightenment, leading experts from art, cultural, and academic institutions explore present-day achievements and challenges in the study, display and interpretation of art, history, and artefacts. How are “global” and “local” objects and narratives balanced – particularly in consideration of diverse audiences? How do we foster perspective and multiculturalism while addressing politicised notions of centre and periphery? As they abandon classical canons and categories, how are museums and cultural entities redefining themselves beyond predefined concepts of geography and history? This collection of essays arises from the symposium Worlds in a Museum organised by Louvre Abu Dhabi and École du Louvre.

Museum Worlds: Advances in Research' is a new, multidisciplinary, refereed, annual journal from Berghahn Journals that will publish work that significantly advances knowledge of global trends, case studies and theory relevant to museum practice and scholarship around the world. It aims to trace and comment on major regional, theoretical, methodological and topical themes and debates, and encourage comparison of museum theories, practices, and developments in different global settings. Each issue includes a conversation piece on a current topic, as well as peer reviewed scholarly articles and review articles, book and exhibition reviews, and news on developments in museum studies and related curricula in different parts of the world. Drawing on the expertise and networks of a global Editorial Board of senior scholars and museum practitioners, the journal will both challenge and develop the core concepts that link different disciplinary perspectives on museums by bringing new voices into ongoing debates and discussions.

For millions of people around the world, Tibet is a domain of undisturbed tradition, the Dalai Lama a spiritual guide. By contrast, the Tibet Museum opened in Lhasa by the Chinese in 1999 was designed to reclassify Tibetan objects as cultural relics and the Dalai Lama as obsolete. Suggesting that both these views are suspect, Clare E. Harris argues in The Museum on the Roof of the World that for the past one hundred and fifty years, British and Chinese collectors and curators have tried to convert Tibet itself into a museum, an image some Tibetans have begun to contest. This book is a powerful account of the museums created by, for, or on behalf of Tibetans and the nationalist agendas that have played out in them. Harris begins with the British public’s first encounter with Tibetan culture in 1854. She then examines the role of imperial collectors and photographers in representations of the region and visits competing museums of Tibet in India and Lhasa. Drawing on fieldwork in Tibetan communities, she also documents the activities of contemporary Tibetan artists as they try to displace the utopian visions of their country prevalent in the West, as well as the negative assessments of their heritage common in China. Illustrated with many previously unpublished images, this book addresses the pressing question of who has the right to represent Tibet in museums and beyond.

SALTZMAN/OLD MASTERS; NEW WORLD

World Cultures and Ethnographic Museums are the museums of our time in Europe. They are in the spotlight in a changing society, confronted with public discourse about the legacies of colonialism and the challenges to live together in a society shaped by migration and globalization.The Art of Being a World Culture Museum sketches the variety and practices of these museums by giving a lively insight into the exhibition ambiances, working conditions and practices, the collections and the museum architecture.'We want a variety of stories, we want new questions, and we want questions that are provocative and make people think [...] Collections have values and purposes today that supersede the reasons for, and contexts of, their formation.' -- Nicholas Thomas (Director, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Cambridge)The book contains excerpts of interviews with museum directors and beautiful photographs capturing the sites, displays, work environments and dynamics of 10 ethnography museums.The museums in focus include: Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge (England), National Museums of World Culture, Stockholm/Gothenberg (Sweden), and Weltmuseum Wien, Vienna (Austria).Published in the frame of SWICH - Sharing a World of Inclusion, Creativity and Heritage. Ethnography, Museums World Culture and New Citizenship in Europe.

The centuries-long history of the Louvre, from humble fortress to Royal palace to the world’s greatest art museum—with photos and building maps. Some ten million people from all over the world flock to the Louvre each year to enjoy its incomparable art collection. Yet few of them are aware of the remarkable history of the site and buildings themselves—a fascinating story that historian James Gardner elegantly chronicles in this authoritative history. More than seven thousand years ago, men and women camped on a spot called le Louvre for reasons unknown. Centuries later, King Philippe Auguste of France constructed a fortress there, just outside the walls of a nascent Paris. Intended to protect the capital against English soldiers stationed in Normandy, the fortress became a royal residence under Charles V two centuries later, and then the monarchy’s principal residence under the great Renaissance king François I. In 1682, when Louis XIV moved his court to Versailles, the Louvre languished until the French Revolution when, during the Reign of Terror in 1793, it first opened its doors to display the nation’s treasures. Ever since—through the Napoleonic era, the Commune, two World Wars, to the present—the Louvre has been a witness to French history, and expanded to become home to a legendary art collection that includes the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. Includes sixteen pages of full-color photos illustrating the history of the Louvre, a full-color map detailing its evolution from fortress to museum, and black-and-white images throughout the narrative.

A “thrilling, well-researched” account of years of scandal at the prestigious Getty Museum (Ulrich Boser, author of The Gardner Heist). In recent years, several of America’s leading art museums have voluntarily given up their finest pieces of classical art to the governments of Italy and Greece. Why would they be moved to such unheard-of generosity? The answer lies at the Getty, one of the world’s richest and most troubled museums, and scandalous revelations that it had been buying looted antiquities for decades. Drawing on a trove of confidential museum records and candid interviews, these two journalists give us a fly-on-the-wall account of the inner workings of a world-class museum, and tell a story of outlandish characters and bad behavior that could come straight from the pages of a thriller. “In an authoritative account, two reporters who led a Los Angeles Times investigation reveal the details of the Getty Museum’s illicit purchases, from smugglers and fences, of looted Greek and Roman antiquities. . . . The authors offer an excellent recap of the museum’s misdeeds, brimming with tasty details of the scandal that motivated several of America’s leading art museums to voluntarily return to Italy and Greece some 100 classical antiquities worth more than half a billion dollars.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “An astonishing and penetrating look into a veiled world where beauty and art are in constant competition with greed and hypocrisy. This engaging book will cast a fresh light on many of those gleaming objects you see in art museums.” —Jonathan Harr, author of The Lost Painting

A biography of Georgia O'Keeffe from her childhood in Wisconsin through her work in New Mexico.

"A fascinating, revelatory portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard"--

Has corporate business overtaken the art world? It's no secret that art and business have always mixed, but their relationship today sparks more questions than ever. Museum, Inc. describes the new art conglomerates from an insider's perspective, probing how their roots run deep into corporate culture. Paul Werner draws on his nine years at the Guggenheim Museum to reveal that contemporary art museums have not broken radically with the past, as often claimed. Rather, Werner observes, they are the logical outcome of the evolution of cultural institutions rooted in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, the colonial expansion of the liberal nation-state, and the rhetoric of democracy. In a witty and argumentative style, Werner critically analyzes today's art institutions and reframes the public's accepted view of them, exposing how their apparent success belies the troubling forces operating within them. He ultimately argues that the art museum we know and love may have already run its course. An engaging discourse structured as an informal gallery talk, Museum, Inc. is a thought-provoking and passionate polemic that offers ideas for a new, more democratic museum.