Academic Sessions: London 2003
Articulating Value: Object, Market, Museum
Convenors:
Dr Abigail Harrison Moore, School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies University of Leeds LS2 9JT. Tel: (0113) 343 5281; a.l.moore@leeds.ac.uk
Mark Westgarth, Centre for Studies in Architecture and Urbanism University of Southampton, 22 Market Place, Snaith, Nr. Goole, East Yorkshire DN14 9HE. Tel: (01405) 861012; m.westgarth@btinternet.com
Abstract:
This session will examine value creation and the articulation between the object, the academic discourse (decorative art history/material culture), the market and the museum. The value of objects is created by a circular system, meaningful and sensible in its own terms. Bound up in this are moral, intellectual and social attitudes which discriminate between objects, the whole operating as a self perpetuating system of power, in which, in material terms, the authentic pieces are elevated and the inauthentic pieces depressed. When the same experts are working with or as dealers, questions must be raised regarding the construction of the market. This has been brought to light in recent times through the media focus on court cases involving major international auction houses. As a self–perpetuating articulation, any interruption, whether it be to question or to accuse, causes an immediate breakdown of value. The museum, from its moment of inception, has been more than a mere historical object. It has manufactured an image of history. By collecting artifacts from the past, the museum gives shape to history. The objects are reinscribed into a socially meaningful language. Museums are as much in the business of trading art, objects and history as the antique shop and the auction house. The objects and the past are commodities, open to systems of valuation and devaluation under the cover of historical rationality. This session will focus on material culture in order to examine how objects can be read in relation to the articulation between the discourse, the museum and the market.
Mark Westgarth (University of Southampton) Selling-Knowledge: Exhibitions, Antique Dealers and an Evolution of Decorative Art.
Simon Knell (Leicester University) Collecting for the Museum of Hidden Agendas.
Malcolm Gee (Northumbria University) The Art Market and the Public Art Gallery in France and Germany 1918–1933: Nationalism, Internationalism, Commerce, and Contemporary Art.
Jane Pavitt (University of Brighton and the V&A) Commerce and Curatorship: the Collection and Exhibition of Contemporary Goods at the V&A, 1900–now.
Valerie Mainz (University of Leeds) Framing the French Revolution.
Jonathan Vickery (Warwick University) Art and its Organisations: the Institutionalisation of Aesthetic Value.
Dr Jenny Tennant Jackson (University of Leeds) F.C.U.K: The Wallace Collection.
Dr Abigail Harrison Moore, School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies University of Leeds LS2 9JT. Tel: (0113) 343 5281; a.l.moore@leeds.ac.uk
Mark Westgarth, Centre for Studies in Architecture and Urbanism University of Southampton, 22 Market Place, Snaith, Nr. Goole, East Yorkshire DN14 9HE. Tel: (01405) 861012; m.westgarth@btinternet.com
Abstract:
This session will examine value creation and the articulation between the object, the academic discourse (decorative art history/material culture), the market and the museum. The value of objects is created by a circular system, meaningful and sensible in its own terms. Bound up in this are moral, intellectual and social attitudes which discriminate between objects, the whole operating as a self perpetuating system of power, in which, in material terms, the authentic pieces are elevated and the inauthentic pieces depressed. When the same experts are working with or as dealers, questions must be raised regarding the construction of the market. This has been brought to light in recent times through the media focus on court cases involving major international auction houses. As a self–perpetuating articulation, any interruption, whether it be to question or to accuse, causes an immediate breakdown of value. The museum, from its moment of inception, has been more than a mere historical object. It has manufactured an image of history. By collecting artifacts from the past, the museum gives shape to history. The objects are reinscribed into a socially meaningful language. Museums are as much in the business of trading art, objects and history as the antique shop and the auction house. The objects and the past are commodities, open to systems of valuation and devaluation under the cover of historical rationality. This session will focus on material culture in order to examine how objects can be read in relation to the articulation between the discourse, the museum and the market.
Mark Westgarth (University of Southampton) Selling-Knowledge: Exhibitions, Antique Dealers and an Evolution of Decorative Art.
Simon Knell (Leicester University) Collecting for the Museum of Hidden Agendas.
Malcolm Gee (Northumbria University) The Art Market and the Public Art Gallery in France and Germany 1918–1933: Nationalism, Internationalism, Commerce, and Contemporary Art.
Jane Pavitt (University of Brighton and the V&A) Commerce and Curatorship: the Collection and Exhibition of Contemporary Goods at the V&A, 1900–now.
Valerie Mainz (University of Leeds) Framing the French Revolution.
Jonathan Vickery (Warwick University) Art and its Organisations: the Institutionalisation of Aesthetic Value.
Dr Jenny Tennant Jackson (University of Leeds) F.C.U.K: The Wallace Collection.